Red puts his Super Nintendo aside. On television they broadcast a movie where “four children walk on the train tracks”—a reference to Count on me (1986)—and our young protagonist leaves home for adventure, as if inspired by that gang of explorers. With these actions the plot line of the first generation of video games begins. Pokemon. And yes, it seems ironic that this character chose to stay away from electronic devices, while the players had to remain attached to them to continue their journey. However, the universe of Charmander, Bulbasaur and Squirtle was not born or evolved to deprive us of human contact, quite the opposite.
It was on February 27, 1996 when two innovative titles arrived in Japanese stores for game boywhich laid the foundations for what would become a gigantic multimedia franchise. Pocket Monsters: Red and Pocket Monsters: Green They were different editions of the same video game, with the particularity that between them the 151 pocket monsters that originally populated the fictional region of Kanto were distributed.
In that sense, it was essential that a player with the Red version search for a player with the Green version (and vice versa) so that, using a special cable, their respective portable consoles could connect and exchange information. Only then could a true Pokémon master “catch them all.” This was the main objective of those titles and represented their main attraction among young people. gamers.
A necessary escape
Did the people at Nintendo expect that Pokemon Was it a resounding success? That’s what the magazine asked him time to Satoshi Tajiri in the fall of 1999. The video game creator confessed that the company’s expectations were low, especially considering that the Game Boy was a medium in decline by the mid-nineties. “I felt like a baseball player who slides to second base even though he knows he’s going to be out,” noted the Japanese designer, “but then it turns out you’re safe.” Pocket Monsters: Red and Greenalong with the almost immediate improved version Pocket Monsters: Bluewould sell more than ten million copies in Japan.
Since his early hobby of collecting insects was repressed due to increasing urbanization during the last third of the 20th century, it can be said that Tajiri developed Pocket Monsters to satisfy the collecting spirit of others who, like him, were nature lovers before they gamers. The Tokyoite has pointed out how the gradual disappearance of rural areas caused children to prefer to stay at home, along with the social pressures to excel academically that absorbed a considerable part of their time. This situation, according to BBCled these generations to be more dependent on video games.
But with the first generation of Pokemon, the developer Game Freak brought together isolated players, based on a fantastic world and highly original creatures that they themselves could name and train according to their preferences. If we add to this a gameplay that revolutionized communication between consoles, favoring a dynamic of exchange, it is not surprising that boom of the video game in the land of the rising sun and the interest it soon aroused in the rest of the world.
An endless evolution
What emerged as a video game soon spread to other areas, such as collectible card games, countless merchandise and, of course, the first anime series released in 1997. The Show television consolidated Pikachu as the official mascot of the franchise and skyrocketed its popularity in Mexico, long before the Game Boy cartridges. Alan Mandujano, co-founder of the Pokémex community, maintains that “yellow fever” did not spread in our country until Channel 5 began broadcasting the adventures of Ash Ketchum and his friends in June 1999.
After to Grid, Green and Bluewe have had more than twenty-five years of new deliveries, remakes, spin-offs and improved versions that have pleased millions of fans around the globe. Highlights the phenomenon Pokémon Gowhich since the summer of 2016—in line with the spirit that saw the birth of the original video games—caused countless users to take to the streets to catch pocket monsters, based on augmented reality technology. 2020 figures reported by Sensor Tower place Mexico among the three favorite nations for the mobile application, with almost 40 million downloads since its launch.
Abundance has characterized the universe conceived by Satoshi Tajiri, who, in the words of his colleague Shigeru Miyamoto, the creator of Mario and The Legend of Zelda: “I didn’t intend to do something that would become very popular. He just wanted to do something that he himself wanted to play.”
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Antonio G. Spindola I have very bad memory. Out of solidarity with my memories, I choose to get lost too. Preferably, in a movie theater.