Love ‘em or Loathe ‘em or just Don’t Get ‘em At All, if you’ve had brain life in the past ten years, you can’t help having learned the name of at least one Pokémon (no, BESIDES Pikachu). Come on - think back to the first wave of trading cards, pencil toppers, keychains, movies, and oh yeah the Game Boy games that sold them all, and tell me you can’t remember what Bulbasaur looked like, maybe even in algae-green shades of dot matrix. I played it, I had the counterfeit, Korean variety store-bought cards by Q-Boy, and I knew I could print stickers of my team at Blockbuster if I had any money.

My fall from the wagon? I dunno. I personally haven’t counted myself a fan, not now, not ever - a typical sort of fan holding nothing short of a Ph.D in Pokémon Breeding Customs and Gender Differentials. I just don’t have room in my heart for 12,937 fictive critters, and I don’t totally get the heavier theological/mythological direction they’re taking - they’re still named Piplup and Turtwig, for fig’s sake. But something in the name of more than Pokémon, that will be fun long after (if ever) the fad dies out, is Pokémon Stadium.

My best memories of this title include asking my circle of not-necessarily-sober friends at every get-together if we could play the “Minigame Stadium”, as though it was a game unto itself. Really it is, as this mode has all the elements of a conversation piece, a bonding exercise, and a ripping good time pressing buttons and pushing sticks rolled into one. Little else offers such accessible, yet competitive hand-to-eye folly for four people and four controllers this side of Goldeneye, and we’ve all played the crap out of Goldeneye.

If something endures about Pokémon to me, here it is.

Posted on February 15th, 2008 by katie