Sure, Pokémon is supposed to be for kids, but you shouldn’t ignore it. This is why.
You can’t turn around these days without seeing another Pikachu or another sweet and syrupy character from Nintendo’s famous Pokémon game series. From toys and cartoons to video games, today’s youth were swept away by “Poké-Mania” and for ten years the tide has not stopped. How can such a silly concept be so durable?
You may not know that Pokémon was created as a video game concept in Japan in 1996. A popular hobby of Japanese children is collecting insects. A Japanese businessman named Satoshi Tajiri-Oniwa thought that a game that revolved around collecting different types of animals would be a great salesman, so he came up with the idea that it would soon become the multi-million dollar international marketing machine that everyone. we know and love (tolerate?) today.
The original games were deceptively simple, with a certain quirky and endearing charm. You start out as a child who is given a Pokémon (short for “Pocket Monster” as for the American release, Nintendo feared a lawsuit from the company that owned the similar title “Monster in my Pocket”) to protect you as you explore the world in a mission to capture all kinds of monsters. The Pokémon you catch can help you find and capture other monsters. Plus, you can even trade monsters with your friends to grow your collection. This is even necessary, as there are two versions of each Pokémon game and some monsters can only be caught in one version or the other.
As you breed your Pokémon and watch them grow stronger, you can battle with them against other players. These “battles” are basically a complex game of “rock, paper, scissors”, in which each monster has a characteristic that gives it an advantage over another type. For example, grass types can easily wear down water types, but they are weak for fire and bird types!
While all the merchandising soon followed, real games are very smart and well made, making them a lot of fun for anyone who enjoys strategy or even just exploring a world and collecting cute, scary, or strange creatures. You can enjoy the games without even watching a cartoon or buying a stuffed Pikachu; trying to “catch them all” has been a guilty pleasure for quite a few people outside of the target demographic for these games.