Why Do We Like It?
Somebody who is not a fan of Pokémon will most likely not find anything particularly captivating or interesting about the Pokémon video games, anime, cards or other merchandise. Thus it would be only natural for one to ask himself, Why are they all so obsessed with a dull video game and a children's cartoon?
Various different Pokémon fans will answer this question differently, but this section will detail the main four reasons as I've experienced the fandom.
Reason #1: The Strategy
Many people like Pokémon because of the potential for complex strategy inherent in the games' battle system. While the in-game challenge level is not very high, the main series offers for highly challenging two-player gaming that any fan of turn-based strategy can appreciate. Competitive battling, as it is called, in Pokémon is a major phenomenon in the fandom, with one of the major Pokémon websites on the net entirely devoted to strategic articles and information intended for competitive play (Smogon). Most largeish Pokémon forums contain whole sections about team ratings and host tournaments. With the advent of Wi-Fi battling in the fourth generation, it is even easier to test your competitive skills (prior to this, online battling was done through fan-created battling simulators).
Reason #2: The Gameplay
Many people simply like the general format of the Pokémon games. You get to raise hundreds of unique monsters, can teach them all a wide variety of different moves, and in the later games can even influence what their final stats will be through your training; the battling is turn-based and strategic; the storyline is simple and open-ended; there is plenty to do after you beat the game, and capturing/raising your Pokémon is something you can work on long after you have finished the actual storyline. Throughout the game, the player can grow to love their Pokémon and everything that makes them unique.
Reason #3: The Monsters
There are nearly five hundred different Pokémon. Every design is unique, unlike many games where one monster might just be a palette-swapped version of another. Every species has its own quirks: it might have anywhere from one to three evolutionary stages and possibly multiple possibilities for the same stage, with the evolutions happening in different ways; they learn particular moves at particular levels, different TM, HM and breeding moves; they have different stats, drastically affecting the way one might use them in battle; they have Pokédex entries with fascinating little snippets about their behavior or how they live in the wild. They range from the sickeningly cute to the just plain badass, from the animal-like to the utterly alien. In this large variety of monsters, almost anybody can find several that really appeal to them, allowing anybody fond of made-up creatures to enjoy Pokémon largely for that, especially artists.
Reason #4: The Creative Potential
Finally, many Pokémon fans see potential for original creation in the concept of Pokémon and the Pokémon world. The Pokémon canon is extremely open for original characters and storylines, since it has an interesting, reasonably well-established basic world with the canon characters and storylines relatively unimportant, resulting in far greater fanfiction potential than in most other popular fandoms. There are people who love creating realistic interpretations of Pokémon, creating their own theories about how the world functions, making fan-created Pokémon and fan games, and so on.
So there you have it - the four main reasons that we like Pokémon. Different fans enjoy Pokémon for various combinations of these reasons and sometimes others - I personally like it for all four. Of course these factors don't appeal to everyone and they don't have to, but at least, if none of it appeals to you, you can hopefully understand that it would appeal to us.
Page last modified March 15 2009 at 14:57 GMT
