Pokémon is a hit because it’s cooperative | Hacker News Reader

Pokémon is a hit because it’s cooperative

theverge.com

12 pointsTomte5 comments

I doubted the article based on the headline. My initial memories of pokemon mainly involve grinding away by myself on my old Gameboy. However, the text of the article makes the case well and does bring back memories of trading Pokemon with my brother and cousins. It also reminds you of just how many Pokemon games there really are.

I never got into the more technical aspects of playing, such as tracking specific Pokemon move stats and CP levels, but I always found the game fun. There's probably a layer of nostalgia that helps with this - the games aren't all that groundbreaking technically or graphically, and the anime is cringy to try and watch as an adult - but I will always buy the latest Pokemon game and give it a shot.

Recently I bought a Joey Jr rom dumper [1] and I was able to dump my original Pokemon Blue save file and rom so now I can play my og game on an emulator.

One aspect the article didn't touch on was the hacking/glitching community. In general I avoid the random global trades because most 'mon coming out are these hacked shiny legendaries who are nicknamed after pokemon hacking websites. While I don't want them now, I do look back and remember on my old Blue version doing item glitching techniques, missingno item duplication, glitches to get mew. While the game is cooperative, there has also always been a subset of the players who love hacking their way to better pokemon and exploring beyond the bounds of the game.

[1] https://bennvenn.myshopify.com/products/usb-gb-c-cart-dumper...

Yeah I enjoy watching a lot of the hacked challenge runs that are on Youtube/Twitch these days. Like seeing if it's possible to beat Pokemon when all trainers have level 100s or having Pokemon level down when they gain experience in battle instead of up.

I never got big into the competitive scene either but I do find myself picking up a copy each release. Not sure if I'll get the Diamond/Pearl remakes as I can still easily play those though.

I always felt like they should have made MissingNo a canonical pokemon.

I think it's the characters.

Toy Companies make characters first, and then the toys are just cheap plastic incarnations that would otherwise be worthless.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was an amazing comic book.

GI Joe was revitalized with a comic book and cartoon, the toys are the money-making add-on.

Disney's ownership of Marvel Comics is valuable because they own this creative universe can can bilk it in any number of ways for a very long time to come. They can reboot Spiderman for decades.

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