Oh childhood. |
Background Information:
Pokémon (Japanese: ポケットモンスター Pocket Monsters, ポケモン Pokémonfor short) is a media franchise owned by the video game company Nintendo and created by Satoshi Tajiri around 1995. Originally released as a pair of interlinkable Game Boy role-playing video games, Pokémon has since become the second most successful and lucrative video game-based media franchise in the world, behind only Nintendo's Mario series. Pokémon properties have since been merchandised into anime, manga, trading cards, toys, books, and other media. The series' focus are the creatures known as Pokémon and their inhabited world, full of legends, tales, and adventures. Pokémon coexist with humans, and can be caught, trained and used in battles or other activities. Trainers travel across lands along with their Pokémon, aiming to make their dreams become reality.
With help from Shigeru Miyamoto, the series began development, with the concepts of the original games, Pokémon Red and Green, going into production between 1990 and 1995. At last, in early 1996, the first games in the series were released, and Tajiri's dream had become reality. Though compared to other games of its time, Pokémon was very limited, with comparatively poor graphics and sound, the series was an overnight success, and Red and Green were quickly followed by an upgraded third version, Pokémon Blue.
An anime was produced, with the intention of covering the journey players took through the Kanto region in the games over the course of a year and a half. About halfway through this run, however, tragedy struck, and an episode of the anime was found to be responsible for epileptic seizures for more than 600 children due to a flashing strobe effect. No one died of these seizures, and after a brief hiatus to address the problem, the anime returned to the air to complete the Kanto run.
Game Freak, however, encouraged by the success of their first trio of games, had already begun development on a sequel to them. With the franchise still running strong, and an upcoming introduction of it to the United States, popularity soared. Rather than releasing their sequels immediately, however, Game Freak instead chose to draw from the story of the anime, which differed from the games in that its protagonist was given a Pikachu instead of the standard starter Pokémon received in Red, Green, and Blue, and created a fourth, Special Pikachu Edition, of the Kanto story to buy some more time for development on the announced sequels.
Several manga series were also produced in this early time, including Pokémon Adventures, which Tajiri has stated is closest to his original idea of the world the series takes place in.
Eventually, however, the much-awaited sequels were finally released. Pokémon Gold and Silver, revamped the Pokémon world, bringing it into full color and addressing many of the issues that had been present in the original games, especially glitches and the type imbalance. The anime, manga, and other wings of the franchise followed as well, bringing their characters into the second generation.
Even after the initial hype the series had in most of the world died down, however, the Pokémon series remained strong. Another third version, this time to Gold and Silver, was produced, focusing on another of Johto's legends, Suicune. With Pokémon Crystal, a female player character was finally introduced, and the games became fully dependent on the Game Boy Color, abandoning the now long-outdated Game Boy. A third generation was announced to be on its way on the new Game Boy Advance, and among fans, the hype returned strongly.
Despite this, when Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire were released, many people heard of them, and their generation in general, as a disappointment. Misty, Ash's longtime companion in the anime, left the show while a new girl, May joined him, and the games themselves, unlike the Generation II games, they were completely incompatible with their predecessors, making 184 of the 251 Pokémon previously released completely unobtainable without cheating. This itself was addressed with the unprecedented release of remakes of the original pair of games, Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen, which brought back the availability of many of the Pokémon missing from Ruby and Sapphire. Within a year, as well, yet another third version, this time for the Hoenn story, was released, as Pokémon Emerald, and introduced a Battle Frontier and many other aspects that would be enjoyed by those who battled Pokémon competitively.
Much like the previous generations, the fourth generation was very anticipated, and Pokémon Diamond and Pearl received much praise. These games brought with them many enhancements from Emerald, and for the first time, Pokémon could be played online to battle against and trade with other players across the world. Due to the earlier release of remakes for the original pair of games, this generation saw much speculation for a remake of the now-outdated Generation II games, and hidden data in the games themselves seemed to indicate that they would be on their way shortly.
A third version of the pair, Pokémon Platinum, was released two years afterward, and due to this, as well as the delay in the release, many became discouraged that the remakes would ever come. Despite this, however, finally, after five years of speculation, Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver were released.
The current generation of the franchise constitutes a "reboot" similar to that of the third. The highly anticipated Pokémon Black and White are set far away from the previously released games in a region based on New York City. Initially in the game, only new Pokémon introduced in this generation are available, forcing veteran players to rethink old strategies. The games do have the capacity to connect to older games, however, and maintain the international connectivity introduced in the fourth generation. The anime series, Trading Card Game and some manga series have already embraced the new generation with new releases of tie-in media. Announcements about any future games in this generation are yet to be made.
Standing in the Battledome:
Pokemon is known for having Pokemon that control an element, Pokemon that control wishes, time, space, dreams and can even create universes. Most of this is Pokedex fluff though and is debatable. In the OBD, Pokemon is often put against Digimon, and usually loses. Also see: Pokemon are Hax
The verse has gone through a retarded amount of power inflation in recent years jumping from life wipers at best to arguably universal level threats. One can't help but wonder just what the fuck they were thinking when they came up with Arceus and the Dragon Gods... Horrible, horrible thoughts of multiple Dialga's time jumping to a single point in time for VS battles plague this editor's mind. Or worse, multiple Arceus Primes which should be possible anyways after that Celebi shit in the 4th movie. Oh dear god...
Known Supporters:
- Ampchu
- Basilikos
- Bernkastel (mainly the anime)
- Bioness
- C. Hook (He just likes playing the games)
- Dubledolix09
- Hellspawn28
- Imagine (The games)
- ipakmann
- iwandesu (mainly anime and games)
- KaiserWombat
- mystictrunks
- NightmareCinema (games and Pokemon Special manga)
- skiboydoggy
- The Anti-Existence
- TheJoker
- Ultimate Deathsaurer (mainly a few legendaries like Mewtwo, Lugia, Palkia, Dialga.)
- Weather
- Xiammes (the games and manga)
Character Profiles:
Trainers:
Regulars:
- Aggron
- Alakazam
- Blaziken
- Charizard
- Dragonite
- Flygon
- Garchomp
- Gengar
- Gyarados
- Infernape
- Lapras
- Lucario
- Machamp
- Ninetales
- Pidgeot
- Pika (manga)
- Pikachu (anime)
- Salamence
- Sceptile
- Snorlax
- Steelix
- Swampert
- Rhyperior
- Torterra
- Tyranitar
- Unown
- Zoroark
Legendaries:
- Arceus
- Celebi
- Cresselia
- Darkrai
- Deoxys
- Diancie
- Dialga
- Giratina
- Groudon
- Heatran
- Ho-Oh
- Hoopa
- Jirachi
- Kyogre
- Kyurem
- Latias
- Latios
- Lugia
- Manaphy
- Mew
- Mewtwo
- Necrozma
- Palkia
- Rayquaza
- Reshiram
- Regigigas
- Shaymin
- Victini
- Xerneas
- Yveltal
- Zekrom
- Zygarde
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