ATTENTION, I require your assistance with research for a future video. It is a topic regarding the usage of Cutscene Skip/Fast Forward within RPG games. Please reply under this comment and let me know which RPG games you have played which either have or do not have a Cutscene Skip function. I am not asking for an opinion on whether you feel that the game's story cutscenes are good or bad or are worth skipping (e.g. Pokémon Sun/Moon). I am only asking if the Cutscene Skip functionality even exists at all (e.g. Persona 4 has a Fast Forward). Please lend me a hand to make my pleanning, research and script writing work be as reliable (and painless) as possible. Next video will NOT be about Pokémon. We'll take a break from Pokémon and discuss a silly topic from another game. Also I will finish that 50 min "Which Pokémon Game is Best for a Beginner" Tier List video in the future. Eventually. -- Music Timestamps: 0:24 - Cerulean City [Pokémon Red & Blue] 0:48 - Bicycle Theme [Pokémon Black & White] 2:40 - Dance of Deduction (Type A) [The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles] 4:34 - Trucy Wright, Child of Magic 2013 [Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies] 5:14 - COMPLICATION [Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective] 8:23 - Trance Logic [Ace Attorney: Apollo Justice] 9:51 - Merlee's Mansion [Super Paper Mario] 11:58 - Mimi Battle 1, "I'm Not Nice" [Super Paper Mario] 13:19 - Distorted Day in Paris 13:26 - SUSPICION [Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective] 16:25 - Thought Route / Revisualization, Resonance of the Synapses [Ace Attorney: Spirit of Justice] 17:37 - Trucy Wright, Child of Magic 2013 [Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies]
Bethesda doesn't. I don't play many RPGs but skip cutscenes exist in linear games, non RPG solo modes (Call of Duty Campaigns), or cutscenes that exist within replayable game modes (Call of Duty Zombies) Apparently have CoD on the brain
One of my all time favorites has a skip function. Shadow Hearts 2 Covenant. Also the Sequel "From the new World" has it as well. Other games, would be...... Armored Core 2= Skip Function (though not an RPG) Final Fantasy 10, 10-2 and 12 (all have skip function) For games without a skip function, I am not sure I played any. If PC is fair game, then Baldurs Gate 2, Neverwinter Nights 1 and its additions and a game named Zanzarah had unskippable cutscenes. With Zanzarah being a game like pokemon, with children as a user base in mind, I guess that is the reason the cutscenes where not skippable. Anyway hope this helps :D
Okami has cutscene skip after beating the game once on the original PS2 release, but on any future HD release the cutscene skip is available at the start. Unless it's an interactive cutscene. Recent Fire emblems from the 3DS games on do allow you to skip unless there's a choice in the cutscene.
The newer generations of Pokémon have the option to skip cutscenes, but it's only for the special "movie" cutscenes. I personally find it weird that it's a setting to toggle them entirely rather than an action you can do mid-scene like other games. Other than that, the Atelier series allows you to skip basically any cutscene or dialog sequence with a yes/no menu to confirm. That's as far as my RPG cutscene-related knowledge goes.
In gen 1 you don't need the bike even for Cycling Road. The guard tries to stop you from passing without it, but if you just insist and keep pressing left while mash A to pass his dialogue, you'll just pass without the bike. It takes a few tries but it's SUPER EASY. And as soon you enter the Cycling Road, the game just assumes you have the bike and you'll be automatically riding it. Gen 1 programming is the best.
@@ss4kaioken295 It being in a store doesn't necessarily mean it's not scalping, and it being the only bike shop in Kanto just means he can get away with it and no one can say otherwise.
I feel like another use of the bicycle sidequest is that it makes you revisit Cerulean City after having obtained cut, since you'd logically save getting the bicycle for after you've done the SS Anne, since you'd generally want to avoid having to make an extra trip back and forth. By making you revisit it with a new HM, the game gets you in the mindset of "Areas from earlier in the game have uses for HMs you get later." And if not this way, the shortcut back to Viridian City via Diglett's tunnel certainly will teach it to you.
To be fair some games DO keep certain items/equpiment/upgrades/etc behind huge price tags that require loads of grinding to farm money or using glitches to duplicate sellable items of high value.
I'd argue that the bike being unobtainable by normal means serves to teach and reinforce a VERY important aspect of RPG games which we seem to take for granted now a days having years of experience and online guides for them. That being that it teaches that by exploring and talking to NPC's not only can you find out important information which can help you out on your journey, but that certain NPC's will have items for you to receive if you wish to interact with them. This encourages the player to go out of their way to keep interacting with the characters and world so they get more of the smaller story bits and stay engaged in the world.
I never considered getting the bicycle a proper "sidequest", but I think my logic was similar to yours if not much simpler: The price tag is there to encourage the player to figure out a way to get around it. But then it also came up to me that, in an alternate reality where riding your Pokémon on ground was introduced earlier, it could've also be done to tell the players "Oh, you'll get more ways of travelling, just not this one." Aside from that, ever since the next generation specifies the bikes are foldable, which not only actually exist but are also very expensive, it's kinda funny how its price could now be seen as a form of comedic exaggeration of reality.
I just figured it was an anticipation thing: place an object you can't get immediately so the player knows it's coming. Nearby is a long route with little on it, showing a prime place for bike use. This keeps the idea fresh in the player's mind until they reach Vermillion, where they receive the voucher itself. The anticipation builds as you have to deal with walking the long way back. The player receives the bike and excitedly goes to try it, immediately getting the message that it can't be used indoors. In other words, this thing is so great the game can't give you access to it all the time. The player steps out, hops on and sees just how much faster it is. Not wanting to get off, they then see the Cut trees at the bottom of Cerulean, and they make their escape. They now feel both excited and clever, none of which would be as impactful without that wait.
It's not a million dollar bike, though. It's a million YEN bike. On February 27, 1996, when Pokemon Red and Green released, one dollar was worth 104.5 Yen, from what I've found. That would make the bike $9,569.38, nowhere close to a million. It's still over 15x what's reasonable to ask for a bike, even assuming it's some insanely good quality one, but much less insane.
It sucks that they did not keep the shop's name in localization. "Miracle" Cycle fits an overpriced bike like a glove and it would actually be a nice joke with the change from 9.5K to 1M.
The currency is "Poke Dollars", not yen, so it's a million dollar bike. Also nobody cares anyway, the price is outrageous no matter how much "ACK SHULLY" you try to do
Looking back on it, I view this as a child's understanding of something being "expensive". Like, when you only get some cash on birthdays and christmas, and if you're lucky you get 5$/week for doing chores around the house, something that costs 1000$+ might as well cost a million. So that was my initial interpretation of the price tag - the bike is probably quite expensive compared to what else you can buy (and IIRC, someone on the pokemon team said in this world, the costs of pokeballs and potions and the like are subsidized for valid trainers which is why you can get a bunch of pokeballs, some potions, and other items for only about 100$ but a bike is so much more expensive) so your 10 year old mind basically says "Damn, that's like a million bucks! I can't possibly get the money for that for quite a while! Maaaaaaannnn.....Now how am I going to get a bike?" and then the sidequest element comes into play - it becomes a way to encourage listening to NPCs and exploring around the towns.
Something worth noting is the PokéDollar is based on the Japanese Yen, so the ¥1,000,000 Bike would be closer to ~$10,000 USD ($9,581.30 USD by 1996 Yen to USD conversion rates, equivalent to $18,748.94 USD in 2023 when adjusting for inflation). While the price is still ridiculous, it isn't AS ridiculous as it seems, since you could get professional grade sports and mountain bikes at that price point.
@@IndexInvestingWithCole That's a dumb question. Does the fact that we don't have to eat and poop in the Pokemon world mean the people there live on photosynthesis? No matter the cutoff, it's an arbitrary abstraction for the sake of game design.
I was about to point this out. That's why I always thought of PokeBalls as being worth ~$2 and such. Also, seeing that inflation adjustment for 2023 made my soul inch out of my body just a little bit more. I sure wish wages could inflate like that...
@@IndexInvestingWithCole Well, the character played in pokemon-games is a kid. In my opinion close to $10k is pretty much for a kid. And that doesn't even include that you don't even need to pay for your living costs in general like already mentioned.
I think the bike serves 2 purposes. It reminds you that backtracking is OK, normal, and sometimes beneficial. And second, it reminds you to explore as you'll now want to check every building and talk to every NPC in case you can learn or obtain something interesting.
Gonna just post my guess to the question here during intermission. It's because they want you to be aware of its existence first. They want to set it up as a desirable, uniquely rare item. They make it "purchasable" because they also want to instill the idea that the player COULD obtain it. If it wasn't listed as a purchasable item, then there's a good chance players might think it's just part of the scenario, fluff for the setting. By showing it off in an extravagant way that also sets it up as something that could conceivably be obtained, it'll stay in the mind of the players as they move on. They'll think "How CAN I get that?" And it'll encourage them to explore in order to find out a way that doesn't involve winning the actual lottery.
A core part of designing an adventure game is to make the player feel powerful, clever, and/or rich, but only if it feels earned. I think the bike price tag makes players feel clever and rich by finding the voucher and realizing they saved tons of money by doing the side quest. It also has the added bonus of making the game appear like it's giving you multiple options for doing something, even if that's an illusion.
This mindset in how sidequests worked had me very frustrated in the safari zone as a kid as I was sure there was supposed to be a way to help the 2 people who couldn't find eachother
I agree with it being a side quest, but I'd add that it's structured in this way (with the player being likely to see the price of the bike at the bike shop before obtaining the bike voucher) in order to make the player excited to obtain the bicycle.
When a video makes me legitimately think as to why something in a game is the way it is, I know for certain that it'll be a good video. Sadly came up with "game presents an item, item is impossible in the way you would think to get it, but there is a method to getting said item that you have to find" but it's more complex than that when putting stuff like this in a game. The questioning bit did make me want to try Japanese tea one day though... so I'll give it that. Nice vid.
I haven't seen Kung Pow in over a decade and I still knew every word of the intermission and recited it along with the characters. I used to literally watch that movie every single day when I came home from school
The bike is an exploration reward for checking out the bike shop and talking with people at the Pokemon fan club. I do think that the bike shop could better encourage exploration by explaining that bike vouchers are a thing that exists to give away bikes and "I just gave my last one away" to spell out that one of the NPCs probably has it instead of just random tutorial nonsense.
I kinda, vaguely remember 1 (one) NPC telling you that they got a bike voucher for a bicycle somewhere, but it has been so long I might just be confusing that with a different game or even a hackrom. To be absolutely fair, though, games back then were made this way on purpose to lengthen playtime or just for replay value.
Yeah see that would have been a better way to get the player into thinking "Huh, maybe I can find this bike voucher somewhere" If it was mentioned in the game that they exist and someone out there might have one because they were just given one. You'd probably have had less people missing out on it if that was the case, hah. But you know, you live, you learn, kind of thing.
Okay as a amateur game designer myself, I'll play along to the guessing game. It's designed as a teaching moment. Once the player has gotten the ticket and handed it over, it's been taught to them that exploring and talking to EVERY npc can sometimes yield great rewards. Because the target audience of the game - children - are less likely to think in terms of game design, that also doesn't feel like they've just done it the one way it's possible. To a kid it probably felt *possible* that IF they got that much money, they could buy the bike - so that voucher really does feel like a one million dollar discount. GF couldn't have planned for Pokemon's absolutely MASSIVE success, but given how popular the game was and the social element to it, this design element works even better. Only one kid has to figure this out in a friend group, and they'll probably tell the others - instilling in them the desire to talk to every NPC too.
I wasn’t expecting this and wasn’t excited to watch it, but I still appreciate your insight. You’re the first RUclipsr I’ve found who breaks down Pokémon game design. I’m glad your Onix video made its way into my recommended videos. I think I was watching discussion videos about Pokémon SV and the current state of the modern mainline Pokémon games
I think there's more to it. There was also the obvious reason, they needed to offer a faster way to move on the map, but giving the bike from the beggining would take the important part of appreciating the scenarios, the bike is meant as a help further into the gameplay, but giving it a lower price, would make people to be able to afford unnecessary amounts of it. But giving it randomly also would be a problem, because if Bike is a thing on this world, there was needed a way to be accessible for the people. It's part of the world building. So making a store was necessary for world building, and the prize unattainable made sense why there was only a few people with bikes and blocks you to get many of them, and then they use it as a way to help you move, by giving in a side quest. That also allows you to explore more and have other objectives beyond the original path, the main goal.
I think it would be fun to look at the different instances of wild boss Pokemon (Totems, Nobles, Titans, and any other instances of a wild Pokemon serving as a boss) to see what meaningful differences exist between the different approaches to making a single Pokemon a whole boss.
I really like Eternatus in this. A ridiculously strong, unobtainable, eternally dynamaxed form for an already strong mon is a great idea for a memorable boss
If this extends to Ultra Necrozma, I feel like it (the topic, not the video) will get a rather sizable amount of negative criticism similar to his Slaking video. Many of the regular totems work since they typically only have a single stat boosted and are boosting a regular stats similar to yours (similar to a regular enemy just getting a free Sword Dance or Agility) or get an Omni boost buffing overall mediocre stats (Ribombee). Necrozma just says "F that" and gives a double Omni boost to legendary tier stats, making his m a typical JRPG boss in a game whose combat system doesn't work with enemies having stats exponentially higher than yours.
@@anthonyk3952 isn't that like. The point of the ultranecrozma battle tho? Besides, you can just bring a Zoroark transformed into a pokemon weak to psychich and you're gonna be fine lmao
@@anthonyk3952 Maybe, though I will note that it's not a double omni-boost, plus it can be cheesed with any Steel type or a Zoroark. Considering how good of a type Steel is, many players will most likely grab one, plus the fight conveniently takes place right when it's possible to obtain powerful Legendary Pokemon for your team, which far fewer players will do but is an option.
my guess was that it encourages players to explore the world, talk to NPCs, and feel like they won something extra special. i thought i was wrong til i realized that's basically what a side quest is
I don't disagree it's a side quest, but it is a little obtuse as one. For one it's not an NPC that tells you to do anything and the UI for it is a shop so there's no reason to assume it's a quest other than the price tag. However the game has never conditioned you to see the shop as an extra activity. And secondly, the place you get the bike voucher is a pokemon fan club? Which has nothing to do with bikes at all. I just wish the clerk would say something like, 'we had a competition lately and maybe you can get a voucher from someone' or something to that effect to make it more clearer. That said, good video as always, I greatly enjoy your content and keep up the good work!
I think the bike and its voucher also serves as an optional tutorial for how to get strength later. Since for strength you need to trade/give the safari zone warden his dentures and in return get the hm for strength.
I disagree with you about Super Paper Mario - a lot of players are COMFORTED by the idea that they could theoretically grind the currency if they wanted to, because it means the game isn't 'cheating' them. If a game tells you a path is possible, but secretly makes it impossible (even if it openly points out that it's improbable), a lot of players find that bait-and-switch frustrating EVEN IF they would never want to take that impossible path in the first place. The fact that you can treadmill for 11 hours and clear the chapter without stealing, even if it justifiably requires you to still grab the mandatory progression Pixi before or after, means the game is 'keeping its word'. The ludicrous price tag is enough of a deterrent - making it impossible just tells the player that the game doesn't trust you to understand what it's trying to teach you.
Even if it's a poorly handled sidequest, the implementation did everything a sidequest SHOULD DO. It offers a useful, but not needed reward, it has a simple, easily doable means of completion, and that insane price tag goes a long way to making players remember it. As far as the last point goes, even in games with objectively better sidequest tracking and handling, how many might say they have something that stands out so much - for better or worse?
I think it's also intended to provide a hint to players about the need to backtrack from Vermilion city to Cerulean city - and that this backtracking _is_ possible. After all, consider the (somewhat questionable although probably thematic) one-way route from Pewter City to Cerulean City. That would probably lead to some players assuming that backtracking (at least after a gym battle) isn't allowed (as they physically cant backtrack to Pewter City from Cerulean City). However, upon eventually reaching Vermilion City (and doing the SS Anne, obtaining Cut, and defeating Lt. Surge), we know that one needs to return to Cerulean and then go from there to Route 9. By giving the player the bike voucher in Vermilion, in turn encouraging the player to go back to Cerulean to collect it, this encourages the player to backtrack - where they will probably notice the cut tree to Route 9, which they can then cut down to continue their journey. (And if they don't backtrack via the easy route, instead opting to take the only other option of the lengthy diversion via Diglett's Cave, they'll end up back in Celadon and notice the entrance to Route 9 eventually)
I always wondered why you couldn't backtrack to Pewter from Cerulean. I remember having to restart a save file because I felt I couldn't grind in the grass to prepare for the gym....
My answer to the question at the beginning is "Tchekhov's Rifle" (I only know the french name so I'm not sure about the translation), and it still seems like a good answer to me at the end :) Sure, it is a side quest, but it works like a Tchekhov's Rifle, as you see it and know it has to be important. It's not here for no reason, so if you cannot get it now, it'll be available later. I understood it easily as a kid at the time (5 y.o.), so it seems like it's working ^^
@13:27 you also have a pokemon avatar which is a GAME all about grinding. you grind for items, you grind for lvls, you grind for money. its all about the grind baby.
My guess is that the absurd price is presented so that the player feels more gratification/excitement when they get it for absolute free. Many stores will often have items that are on sale 100% of the time, almost never selling for their actual baseline price, with said baseline price often even being inflated so that the "On sale" price matches what the company wanted to sell it for in the first place. The reason for this, as psychological studies show, is that we will still see that item as being higher quality/more desirable, even if it is the exact same item. Extra credits had a great video on this in regards to JC penny. If I had to guess, I think the design thought process here from the developers was "Well, lets see how far we can crank that shit up". Adding what is essentially just purely a narrative context to give this the illusion of being more important/hard to get than it actually is. Not only did the player unlock a convenient movement mechanic, but now also feels like they saved on a huge amount of money
Something that should probably be noted every time the bike price is brought up: 1 Poke Dollar is about equal to 1 yen, which is about equal to 1 cent. It wouldn't make any sense for lemonade to cost $350, but it makes perfect sense for it to cost $3.50. So the bike actually costs $10,000, which is still a pretty crazy price for a bike. So they're either way overpriced, or the only bikes in Kanto are super high end racing/mountain bikes.
I actually quite like this method of implementing side quests. My most memorable experiences getting a cool item or something have been through this particular style of side quest. Something about having side quests listed in a quest tracker makes it feel like little more than a checklist of tasks in more modern games to me. The way these classic games had to force you to remember that one unusual thing and think felt so much more rewarding when I explored and completed the side quest.
For my guess, I'm looking at two aspects. Firstly, how it's obtained, and secondly, what it does. While you started out by saying how it's obtained through the Voucher, that's not the full story. You obtain the Voucher by talking to the Fan Club President. Then, you get the bike from the bike shop. You obtain it through interactions of 2 random NPCs you need to find. Secondly, all the bike does is let you go fast. You can access Cycling Road without a bike if you just keep trying to enter over and over again, as well as going south of Lavender to achieve the same destination, meaning the Bike is not required. It's an optional item that can speed up your movement through the game. Because you obtain it by finding and talking to people, and you don't HAVE to get it, my guess is that it's a reward for exploring, designed to encourage more of it going forward, while not impeding anyone's game in a detrimental way if missed or ignored. Addendum: Perhaps I was correct in a roundabout way? I'll leave it to you to decide.
my thought was that it was to get the player thinking about inventory management and money. When you get to cerulean, you have two options progression wise: nugget bridge, or Misty. I just happened to choose nugget bridge and when I got the nugget for the first time as a kid I thought maybe if I sold it I could afford the bike. I couldn't obviously, but I thought maybe it was something I could save up for over the course of the game so I battled every trainer I could to get more money and kept an eye out for more nuggets and stuff I could sell until I got stuck at some point after getting surf in the safari zone and doubled through Vermillion at some point and eventually got the bike voucher
5:00 The reason is: make It memorable by using an emocional experience. Making It unaffordable leads tô you geting pissed, so that emotion makes a callback and the player remembers were to Go to finish the quest line.
I wouldn't even say the bike is just a side quest. It's designed like that to get you to go back to Cerulean City after you have Cut and the Voucher, which is where you have to go in the main quest anyway to head towards Rock Tunnel. Having the player think "ha, now I can go back and get that bike" also sets them up to be exactly where they need to be to continue the game. Without the bike, yeah the player will probably figure it out eventually because it's the only way to proceed to a new area, but the player might spend a lot of time wandering around the rest of the game world and getting blocked before they figure it out. Could get frustrating. Having the bike side quest is a way to guide the player to where they need to go without doing the obnoxious modern Pokemon thing of having NPCs constantly tell you exactly what to do. If this was a modern Pokemon game, you'd get the bike for free your first time in Cerulean and some obnoxious loser like Hop or Hau would stand outside Diglet's cave and ban you from exploring the next route and finding that you're eventually blocked by Snorlax. As soon as you get the badge from Surge, your mom or the professor would call you on whatever phone gadget the game has and tell you "go back to Cerulean and head east." You would never be allowed to play the game for yourself, it'd just constantly tell you where to go and what to do. The $1,000,000 bike and bike voucher are a much less invasive way to guide the player to where they need to go. Instead of forcing the player to go where they need to go with unskippable dialog, the player makes a choice to go back to Cerulean because they want that bike, they want to complete the side quest. It makes the player feel like they're making choices and playing a game, rather than feeling like they're being taken on a guided tour.
When you asked about the question of why the bicycle had to be priced at 1000000. I didn't immediately think, oh it's a sidequest, but more like... it let's the player know that it's theoretically obtainable, so they remember it. Thinking it's something locked behind game progression... so by playing the game further they remember to get it later when they are supposed to. Obviously that isn't quite it, because if it was just for game progression, you'd get the bike simply in a later town... but I didn't think too much about it in 30 seconds. It being a sidequest makes sense.
It's been a long time since i played first gen but i didn't remember the bike was optional, that makes more sense, my hypothesis was that they gave it an artificial value because it has no use in battle, so by making it look more valuable the player could feel like they got something important, despite being only to access the next area, but that doesn't sound like the best game design idea to me.
Honestly the best way to do this tbh, would be for the npc to say that the current bikes are already bought and they're just waiting for the owners to come get it. With the fanclub npc instead of giving a bikey vouncher, giving some kind of signature or something that make the bike npc go "ok they gave you permission, you can get it".
My answer was, "To make the player to explore the map more intently". In a sense that's what sidequests do in order to complete them but there's more nuance in a more specific answer.
My guess is that after beating Surge, the map is designed so that you have to go through the cave near cerulean. So the devs probably wanted to create a reason for players to go from Vermillion, where the voucher is given, back to Cerulean once the player was done with the main story stuff (SS Anne and Gym Battle) there and starts exploring the city a bit more. And the price being $1000000 was supposed to be a sign to the players that the bike wasn't actually going to be bought using your actual ingame currency since the number is way too high. It's kind of funny I got recommended here because just last week a student of mine who's really into retro games was playing Pokemon Blue and asked me how to proceed passed the Snorlax on the right of Vermillion. And while sending him towards the cave, I kind of noticed how getting the bike was also not too off from it.
when you said about side quests in those older games i immediatly thought of Final Fantasy 4, (okay i thought of chrono trigger, but FF 4 is a better example), in FF 4 there is side quest that goes like this: there is a retired blacksmith that says he will only work if you provide him with adamantite ore, then on another side of the map there is a guy who found adamantite, and will only trade you for an item that will expand his collection of creature tails, then in an random chest in a dungeon you find an item called "rat tail", you then trade it for the adamantite, which give to the blacksmith, which will reforge your sword as Excalibur. and that is it.
I hope you're taking into account that without any editing to that intermission clip, it could get copyright struck or something. Great video, by the way.
Best thing about not depending on RUclips as a job is not needing to care about losing money via copyright strikes and being free to edit stuff however I want
The bicycle is optional but difficult to miss if you are progressing normally. At least in Gen1. However the voucher means it is not only a gatekept reward that prevents acquisition before a certain point but means the player will never be at a point where they wasted the resources to buy it. By relying on money a player gives up consumables they need for their journey. Potions for their pokemon, pokeballs to catch new ones and access to new items needed. Since money only comes from trainers, meowth battles, and the elite four it is a finite resource that makes the early game a challenge.
To me the reason the bike is that expensive is to shock the player, so they don't forget about the bike when they get the voucher. This also coincides with getting cut, which Cerulean has two trees to be cut, one of which is the path forward, so even if you don't remember these trees, the bike will probably be enticing enough to go get a look back at Cerulean.
I figured the bike being set at 1m is to heighten the excitement of the voucher, and getting the bike. "Oh, cool, a free bike." Vs "holy crap! I didn't think I'd EVER get the bike!"
Last bike I bought was a Marin Quad XC. That was a $2500 bike but that's partially because it was an experimental mountain bike with cantilever suspension. I'd say between 1000-3000 is about right.
I didn't remember how you got the bike and that it was missable. So my guess was that the point was to hype up the bike. As I always pretty easily got the bike voucher, I remembered getting that as innevitable. My thought was that by showing the bike fiist, it would turn from "here's a bike" to "here's that one unoptainable item that you have been thinking about ever since you saw it". Furthermore, it felt like a realistic price for a bike for me as a kid. I had to save up money for so long until I got one and then my parents still payed most of it. And I had no feeling for large numbers. Anything lower than 1000000 would have felt unbefitting of something as cool as a bicycle for child-me
Clearly its there because it gets you thinking about how big the world is, and makes the bike coupon just this really "oh yeah cool, i gotta go back and get that, isn't that awesome that area is still useful" and there are other hidden caves and areas like that in the game. I do think better would've been "there is a wait list, we'll inform you once you can pickup your bike" and interacting with said npc reminds you to check your mail or go back to the bike shop or cuts in the queue.. etc.
2:30 alright, let's think game design as a non designer. I can think of teasing the bike as a feature early on, since it's near the second gym, making the player think about how much faster they could go while they walk through the next part of the game. So when they get the Bike voucher (I only played FRLG once so I forgot when you get it) you are excited and backtrack to the town you already know the bike is at. It's kind of a tchekovs gun in that sense. Players expect to be able to get the bike somehow when they see it on offer. They just don't know how. Maybe they thought the further you are in the easier it is to get money, so they can buy it later on when the are further into the game, which also makes it more suprising when you get the voucher. But for that to work, the voucer needs to be given to the player directly in the story, otherwise they might miss it. On the other hand the bike could also be a reward for exploring the game throughly if it wasn't as obvious where to get it. Edit: 2:42 I knew that, and it doesn't change my idea, but since you could only a lot of money from the elite 4, you would hope that no one actually tries to grind that much money in hopes of actually getting it. Then again, players are humans with mysterious ideas and plans.
When I played Pokémon Leaf Green for the first time, I expected to receive the bicycle when I arrive in Cerulean City because it was that easy in Pokémon Sapphire. I ended up reaching Indigo Plateau without the bicycle until I finally discovered how to get the bicycle without using the internet.
Could you explain why the Johto gym leaders use so many Kanto Pokemon instead of Johto Pokemon? Like why doesn't Falkner have a Hoothoot instead of Pidgey? Why doesn't Bugsy have a Ledyba or Pineco instead of Metapod and Kakuna? Why doesn't Chuck have a Hitmontop instead of Poliwrath?
13:03 There is a good reason to leave the grinding in. It's sort of an in-joke between the developer and the player in which the developer and player both know that grinding is both boring and not the correct solution. The developer allows it anyway because it is completely on the player whether they deliberately make a fool of themselves or not. Showing an open trust towards your player can make the game feel like it's working with you rather than dictating itself to you.
Personally, I always thought the price of the bike was so obscenely high so that when you do get the voucher for the bike, most people would feel very happy. Getting a $1 million bike for free.
I thought it was just to encourage the player to return to Cerulean City. If I'm not mistaken (and I very well could be, I haven't played Kanto very much), the only way to advance is use Cut on a tree in Cerulean to head eastward to Lavender. If the player doesn't remember they can go that way, having them backtrack to Cerulean will put them in the right place (also, the layout of Cerulean forces you to walk right past the eastern exit if you're coming from Vermillion and trying to get back to the bike shop; the player might see it and think "Wait, why didn't I go this way again? Oh, right, there's a tree in the way. But I can get past that now, lemme just grab the bike first,").
Honestly, while I understand that it is an optional sidequest, I have always got the bike through the voucher simply because I have never once ignored the fan club even by accident. Maybe they could have had done it another way, but after my first time in the bike shop, I have only visited it when I come back from Lt.Surge with the Bike Voucher, never before.
I still want you to do the rival in gen 1. How he both shows you how and how not to play the game. He uses balance but evolves his mons too early. And hes always ahead of you!
Three more things: (Long additional speculative analysis ahead, read at your own risk.) To me, the ludicrous price tag is also part of the incentive; in and of itself: if the bike is hypothetically that expensive, then it must be "valuable" to the player, or worth having and thus worth exploring and backtracking to get. Basically, because you cant have it, it becomes more desirable. It's psychological forbidden fruit. Second, the player, as well as the protagonist, are assumed to still be relatively young kids, within a capitalist society, and often part of that experience is seeing things you want but realizing you can't have them, because as a child you probably have like, no money. Money tends to be the thing that parents use, that you would have to ask them to buy something or earn it through allowance and chores and such. To be in that position, you might initially be overwhelmed by the price tag, or disappointed that you dont and probably wont ever have enough to get it. But then! After a bit of waiting, going through the game, you just so happen to speak with someone who gives you a bike voucher! If you remembered the bike shop from earlier, its going to be really satisfying for a kid to get to "earn" their own big ticket item like that, subverting their expectations and understanding of their role in society, and acting as a moment of triumph over your limited means. Kind of delayed gratification, overcoming the obstacle that seemed insurmountable makes the reward all the sweeter. Plus, this was also back in the day before information on the internet was wide spread, so its very much a moment of "woah, billy on the playground has the bike? i thought that was impossible to get!" and maybe billy tells you how he did it, or maybe he doesnt, but either way you had a notable experience, and a reason to go back to your own copy of the game to see if you can also get it. Its a shared experience you probably have in common with most people who played through that part of the game, forming a sense of connection and community. But thats me spinning the sociopsychological reasons why the game devs may have made that decision. Ultimately, what we know is that the decision was made, and the result was memorable in different ways for everyone who experienced it. I should probably sleep now.
I always thought it was for kids, as a fun super high number. But at the same time, showing the origin of the game... The game is meant to be imagination for the kid... Why are all the NPCs the same? Because you're imagination is making you pretend they're actually different from their not... Why can oak know everything you're doing??? Because he's actually babysitting and you're being watched by him and you're not actually going out... Why is team rocket so easy and the police incompetent? Because you're imagining beating them... Why is the bike a million dollars? Because to kids who can't afford it, it might as well be and it's just a big number for them to imagine... And you only get the bike when your parents buy it for you
Radiant Historia has a fast forward and a full skip function. Since the gameplay has you going through the same cutscenes multiple times it is basically required.
Grind lovers like me would fall into an endless pit for an eternity. Its like an illness that makes you check every thrash can, shake every tree and talk to every npc just to not miss a single thing. Side quests and grinding first, main story last.
I just want to say it makes me irrationally happy when you use kung pow: enter the fist clips in your videos. I love that movie 🎉. I was more of a Kung Fu Hustle fan growing up and it wasn't until adulthood that i really grew to appreciate this movie. I always quote this movie to my husband. "You go that way, I'll go home!" "Rub it all in my hair" "how do you like my nut to fist style?" "Again with the squeaky shoes?" "Product placement Taco Bell, enchirito macho burrito". Being a massive Pokémon Fan its fun seeing you combine the two in edits. I like your videos and explanations, keep up the great work 👍 😊
I agree with almost all of this but I have one small nitpick. The bicycle wasn't designed the way it is because it's an optional sidequest, it's an optional sidequest because of how it was designed. I said it was a nitpick. "Optional sidequest" is a description of the final product of a lot of interesting design choices that you did discuss in the video but it took 14 minutes to get there because we got distracted by sidequest systems. Very enjoyable video but I do wish we had more analysis of the bike's function before jumping straight to the answer. P.S. I don't know how to write a compelling video script, my opinion is no more valuable than any other rando on the internet.
my logic for the bike; step one - world building [bikes are a thing and can be sold in retail], step two - ensuring proper game progression [Running Shoes 2.0 only available "after" gym 2]. comes with accidental world building of pokeballs having a resource priority of metals, resulting in bikes normally being a luxury item in at least the earlier regions Watched more video and i will point out the route right after cerulean, a route you have access to technically before you beat misty, has meowth, which can learn Pay Day. so you have the option of an endless money stream that way... so you get to see that the bike is impossible to buy as you walk with shame and a L100 Persian
I figured that it was to make you feel the bike was precious. This way, you're incentivized to backtrack if/when you get the Bike Voucher, because it's been assigned a high monetary value and so you're likely to not deem backtracking a waste of time.
that's funny because they did the insanely pricey bike thing in diamond and pearl except the bike is necessary to progress. but i guess that was just a reference to the first game.
I just assumed they made it 1 million because the game can't count above that, but forgot that as a child, I didn't know that. But I distinctly remember getting the bike anyway, because I just ended up getting the voucher by exploring. The comparison between modern side quests and this one is interesting. It does make total sense to put them both in the side quest category, but in my mind, the bike was always... different. It feels more like the trading quests in old 2D Zelda games (which usually span the entire game and result in some awesome reward for remembering all the NPCs you met that needed something). Something optional, but tangible enough that it might just not be optional (a blind player wouldn't know). I know, it doesn't make sense to cxonsider it something other than a side quest. If anything, this just made me actively realize how much the concept changed. I even remember a period when they were in an odd middle evolution. In Sword of Mana on the GBA, there are a bunch of fetch quests that really just amount to farming up generic items (like a fetch quest today) for a generic reward. But, there is no quest log yet, no marker differentiating these NPCs from anybody. It felt so strange, playing that game in 2020 because in my mind, I totally equated these quests to the old Zelda and Pokemon style sidequest of "I'll totally get something useful" (because the game was old)but in actuality was playing a modern throwaway fetch quest (IF I managed to find the NPC again)
So the best I can calculate the bike would cost would be between 2,333 and 3,333 USD. Back in 96 an average soda from a vending machine would have been between 35 or 50 cents in rural areas. This is why the soda is twice the price in celadon. So that puts the conversion at either 300 or 428.57... Pokedollars to one USD. So the bike guy dealt in high end specialty bikes. We could be less generous and do a 200 to one conversion rate and say 4444, but that's the lowest I'd consider as 100:1 would make it 1.50 for a soda and back then that would have been outrageous in most places. Let's look at slowpoke tails. Pricing in order from 428:1 down to 200:1 we're looking at 22$, then 32, then 49. Those numbers are certainly comparable to a fresh lobster or Alaskan king crab prices. So let's see...a gold nugget nets 5k. An oz of gold in 1996 would have been 387. Meaning a gram was 13.8something. So a nugget was just a gram. 5000 divided by 428 gets us 16.66... repeating. Dividing 5k by 13.82142 gets us 361.757. 1 million divided by 361.757 gets us a final total of $2,764 for the bike. 27.09 for the slowpoke tails and 41 cent for the soda. Honestly, without wasting more time on this than I already have, this sounds about right Shit, lmk if y'all want me to try my hands at the RUclips thing and dig into this a little further. Could be fun
I figured it was priced that way to demonstrate its value and utility as an item. That way, once you get it for free, you feel like you got a great deal and are super excited to use it. But you're not wrong that it also creates a sidequest.
I figured this would be as a way to force backtracking and move foward with the game. Since the only Pokemon game to do the "on the last episode bit" is LeafGreen and FireRed and being their first game, would be an organic and natural way to remind players of the cut mechnaic and the side route through Rock Tunnel, aka, progression, after long rests between playtimes since guides were scarace during the game's inception and intial release.
The bike is in the same vein as the flying ship in classic Final Fantasy games. NPCs will tell you how the King got this ship that can fly by some feat of magic, but obviously he would never give a treasure like that away. That is, until you save the kingdom later in the game. Since Pokémon is smaller in scale, we're only talking about a bike and the player's great feat is... listening to the ramblings of an old man. The bike shop is showing off that the option to ride a bike exists early. (If you skip the building entirely, you might learn of bikes when you can't enter the bike road.) The ridiculous price hopefully tips the player off that there's an alternative way to get a bike. This incentivizes the players to explore the world more thoroughly, instead of just skipping from gym to gym.
My thought process for that price is that they want you to come back to it. But, they also want to make sure you can’t afford it by any means so that there’s an in universe answer as to why the man will never give you one until you get the voucher. Forcing the player to explore. Also, $1m yen is $6600 usd for comparison. More than I’d ever spend on a bike, but a somewhat less egregious amount
Gen 1 is designed with something of a "child adventure" mentality, so I think that also played a role when designing the 1.000.000 bicycle. A bike isn't something a child would usually be able to afford themselves, but wouldn't be unusual as a gift.
So my reason for the bike being so high in price was similar and different. The gen 1 games were before the running shoes were introduced. So because of this, you move very slowly because you can only walk. By the time you reach Cerulean City, some players may be so tired of the slow walking speed, especially after Mt. Moon. That they might just want to quit the game right then. To stop players from doing this, the developer's dangle these keys infront of the player in the form of the bycicle. An item that cant be obtained but you could assume will increase your movement speed. So this encourages players that are about to quit to keep going because at some point later, you will be able to move faster. Now there are some issues with my reasoning. Those being, why not just give the bike to the player to just solve the movement speed issue and thus, the quiting issue entirely. And B, why show it to the player and come back later then just letting the player find it and fix the speed issue then. And yeah, thats fair. And while it is solved by the Sidequest reason a bit. My reasoning does have some flaws, but I am proud of coming up with it at least. Honestly, your channel is really great. As it has made me think of things in different ways and appreciate things I didnt before, like Geeta.
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![[Game Designer Explains] How the Elite Four Gaslights every Pokémon player](/img/tr.png)
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ATTENTION, I require your assistance with research for a future video. It is a topic regarding the usage of Cutscene Skip/Fast Forward within RPG games. Please reply under this comment and let me know which RPG games you have played which either have or do not have a Cutscene Skip function.
I am not asking for an opinion on whether you feel that the game's story cutscenes are good or bad or are worth skipping (e.g. Pokémon Sun/Moon). I am only asking if the Cutscene Skip functionality even exists at all (e.g. Persona 4 has a Fast Forward). Please lend me a hand to make my pleanning, research and script writing work be as reliable (and painless) as possible.
Next video will NOT be about Pokémon. We'll take a break from Pokémon and discuss a silly topic from another game. Also I will finish that 50 min "Which Pokémon Game is Best for a Beginner" Tier List video in the future. Eventually.
--
Music Timestamps:
0:24 - Cerulean City [Pokémon Red & Blue]
0:48 - Bicycle Theme [Pokémon Black & White]
2:40 - Dance of Deduction (Type A) [The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles]
4:34 - Trucy Wright, Child of Magic 2013 [Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies]
5:14 - COMPLICATION [Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective]
8:23 - Trance Logic [Ace Attorney: Apollo Justice]
9:51 - Merlee's Mansion [Super Paper Mario]
11:58 - Mimi Battle 1, "I'm Not Nice" [Super Paper Mario]
13:19 - Distorted Day in Paris
13:26 - SUSPICION [Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective]
16:25 - Thought Route / Revisualization, Resonance of the Synapses [Ace Attorney: Spirit of Justice]
17:37 - Trucy Wright, Child of Magic 2013 [Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies]
No only do Pokémon videos
Bethesda doesn't. I don't play many RPGs but skip cutscenes exist in linear games, non RPG solo modes (Call of Duty Campaigns), or cutscenes that exist within replayable game modes (Call of Duty Zombies)
Apparently have CoD on the brain
One of my all time favorites has a skip function.
Shadow Hearts 2 Covenant.
Also the Sequel "From the new World" has it as well.
Other games, would be......
Armored Core 2= Skip Function (though not an RPG)
Final Fantasy 10, 10-2 and 12 (all have skip function)
For games without a skip function, I am not sure I played any.
If PC is fair game, then Baldurs Gate 2, Neverwinter Nights 1 and its additions and a game named Zanzarah had unskippable cutscenes.
With Zanzarah being a game like pokemon, with children as a user base in mind, I guess that is the reason the cutscenes where not skippable.
Anyway hope this helps :D
Okami has cutscene skip after beating the game once on the original PS2 release, but on any future HD release the cutscene skip is available at the start. Unless it's an interactive cutscene.
Recent Fire emblems from the 3DS games on do allow you to skip unless there's a choice in the cutscene.
The newer generations of Pokémon have the option to skip cutscenes, but it's only for the special "movie" cutscenes. I personally find it weird that it's a setting to toggle them entirely rather than an action you can do mid-scene like other games.
Other than that, the Atelier series allows you to skip basically any cutscene or dialog sequence with a yes/no menu to confirm.
That's as far as my RPG cutscene-related knowledge goes.
In gen 1 you don't need the bike even for Cycling Road. The guard tries to stop you from passing without it, but if you just insist and keep pressing left while mash A to pass his dialogue, you'll just pass without the bike. It takes a few tries but it's SUPER EASY. And as soon you enter the Cycling Road, the game just assumes you have the bike and you'll be automatically riding it. Gen 1 programming is the best.
Cool!
Bike rental feature
At least these bicycles are set at a price so high that scalpers won't be able to buy and sell them for a much more ludicrous price online
Never underestimate the will of a scalper.
How do you know that the one selling isnt the scalper
@@sjneowCause that was in store not online
@@sjneowAnd it's literally the only bike shop in kanto
@@ss4kaioken295
It being in a store doesn't necessarily mean it's not scalping, and it being the only bike shop in Kanto just means he can get away with it and no one can say otherwise.
I feel like another use of the bicycle sidequest is that it makes you revisit Cerulean City after having obtained cut, since you'd logically save getting the bicycle for after you've done the SS Anne, since you'd generally want to avoid having to make an extra trip back and forth. By making you revisit it with a new HM, the game gets you in the mindset of "Areas from earlier in the game have uses for HMs you get later." And if not this way, the shortcut back to Viridian City via Diglett's tunnel certainly will teach it to you.
But you already have to visit cerulean again after you've gotten cut to go through rock tunnel.
Pokemon bicycle made quite a journey. From a missable optional content to a box art legendary. Truly an inspiring character arc.
nah thats bicycle power creep
I love the idea that there were kids out there who took one look at the 1,000,000 dollar price tag and simply said, "challenge accepted."
To be fair some games DO keep certain items/equpiment/upgrades/etc behind huge price tags that require loads of grinding to farm money or using glitches to duplicate sellable items of high value.
Yep. I was in my late teens when gen1 came out in the US, and I definitely maxed out the wallet to see if the bike was purchasable.
I'd argue that the bike being unobtainable by normal means serves to teach and reinforce a VERY important aspect of RPG games which we seem to take for granted now a days having years of experience and online guides for them. That being that it teaches that by exploring and talking to NPC's not only can you find out important information which can help you out on your journey, but that certain NPC's will have items for you to receive if you wish to interact with them. This encourages the player to go out of their way to keep interacting with the characters and world so they get more of the smaller story bits and stay engaged in the world.
I never considered getting the bicycle a proper "sidequest", but I think my logic was similar to yours if not much simpler: The price tag is there to encourage the player to figure out a way to get around it. But then it also came up to me that, in an alternate reality where riding your Pokémon on ground was introduced earlier, it could've also be done to tell the players "Oh, you'll get more ways of travelling, just not this one."
Aside from that, ever since the next generation specifies the bikes are foldable, which not only actually exist but are also very expensive, it's kinda funny how its price could now be seen as a form of comedic exaggeration of reality.
I just figured it was an anticipation thing: place an object you can't get immediately so the player knows it's coming. Nearby is a long route with little on it, showing a prime place for bike use. This keeps the idea fresh in the player's mind until they reach Vermillion, where they receive the voucher itself. The anticipation builds as you have to deal with walking the long way back. The player receives the bike and excitedly goes to try it, immediately getting the message that it can't be used indoors. In other words, this thing is so great the game can't give you access to it all the time. The player steps out, hops on and sees just how much faster it is. Not wanting to get off, they then see the Cut trees at the bottom of Cerulean, and they make their escape. They now feel both excited and clever, none of which would be as impactful without that wait.
Sounds like something Valve would do!
It's not a million dollar bike, though. It's a million YEN bike. On February 27, 1996, when Pokemon Red and Green released, one dollar was worth 104.5 Yen, from what I've found. That would make the bike $9,569.38, nowhere close to a million. It's still over 15x what's reasonable to ask for a bike, even assuming it's some insanely good quality one, but much less insane.
This I get annoyed people miss that detail it’s different when they are making a joke but yeah
I’m aware of that. It’s a logical deduction since Pokemon is a Japanese game
But “One Million Yen” doesn’t have as nice of a ring to it
It sucks that they did not keep the shop's name in localization. "Miracle" Cycle fits an overpriced bike like a glove and it would actually be a nice joke with the change from 9.5K to 1M.
The currency is "Poke Dollars", not yen, so it's a million dollar bike.
Also nobody cares anyway, the price is outrageous no matter how much "ACK SHULLY" you try to do
@@mjc0961I’m nobody. I care. People pointing out water costs over 100 pokedollars has been unfunny since the beginning of time.
Looking back on it, I view this as a child's understanding of something being "expensive". Like, when you only get some cash on birthdays and christmas, and if you're lucky you get 5$/week for doing chores around the house, something that costs 1000$+ might as well cost a million. So that was my initial interpretation of the price tag - the bike is probably quite expensive compared to what else you can buy (and IIRC, someone on the pokemon team said in this world, the costs of pokeballs and potions and the like are subsidized for valid trainers which is why you can get a bunch of pokeballs, some potions, and other items for only about 100$ but a bike is so much more expensive) so your 10 year old mind basically says "Damn, that's like a million bucks! I can't possibly get the money for that for quite a while! Maaaaaaannnn.....Now how am I going to get a bike?" and then the sidequest element comes into play - it becomes a way to encourage listening to NPCs and exploring around the towns.
Something worth noting is the PokéDollar is based on the Japanese Yen, so the ¥1,000,000 Bike would be closer to ~$10,000 USD ($9,581.30 USD by 1996 Yen to USD conversion rates, equivalent to $18,748.94 USD in 2023 when adjusting for inflation). While the price is still ridiculous, it isn't AS ridiculous as it seems, since you could get professional grade sports and mountain bikes at that price point.
So by your logic literally nobody in the Pokémon world can have $10,000?
@@IndexInvestingWithCole That's a dumb question. Does the fact that we don't have to eat and poop in the Pokemon world mean the people there live on photosynthesis? No matter the cutoff, it's an arbitrary abstraction for the sake of game design.
I was about to point this out. That's why I always thought of PokeBalls as being worth ~$2 and such.
Also, seeing that inflation adjustment for 2023 made my soul inch out of my body just a little bit more. I sure wish wages could inflate like that...
@@IndexInvestingWithCole Well, the character played in pokemon-games is a kid. In my opinion close to $10k is pretty much for a kid.
And that doesn't even include that you don't even need to pay for your living costs in general like already mentioned.
I thought it was 100,000
I like classic sidequests. They feel more like fun side content than "barrier to 100%."
I think the bike serves 2 purposes. It reminds you that backtracking is OK, normal, and sometimes beneficial. And second, it reminds you to explore as you'll now want to check every building and talk to every NPC in case you can learn or obtain something interesting.
Gonna just post my guess to the question here during intermission.
It's because they want you to be aware of its existence first. They want to set it up as a desirable, uniquely rare item.
They make it "purchasable" because they also want to instill the idea that the player COULD obtain it. If it wasn't listed as a purchasable item, then there's a good chance players might think it's just part of the scenario, fluff for the setting.
By showing it off in an extravagant way that also sets it up as something that could conceivably be obtained, it'll stay in the mind of the players as they move on. They'll think "How CAN I get that?" And it'll encourage them to explore in order to find out a way that doesn't involve winning the actual lottery.
A core part of designing an adventure game is to make the player feel powerful, clever, and/or rich, but only if it feels earned. I think the bike price tag makes players feel clever and rich by finding the voucher and realizing they saved tons of money by doing the side quest. It also has the added bonus of making the game appear like it's giving you multiple options for doing something, even if that's an illusion.
This mindset in how sidequests worked had me very frustrated in the safari zone as a kid as I was sure there was supposed to be a way to help the 2 people who couldn't find eachother
I agree with it being a side quest, but I'd add that it's structured in this way (with the player being likely to see the price of the bike at the bike shop before obtaining the bike voucher) in order to make the player excited to obtain the bicycle.
When a video makes me legitimately think as to why something in a game is the way it is, I know for certain that it'll be a good video. Sadly came up with "game presents an item, item is impossible in the way you would think to get it, but there is a method to getting said item that you have to find" but it's more complex than that when putting stuff like this in a game. The questioning bit did make me want to try Japanese tea one day though... so I'll give it that. Nice vid.
I haven't seen Kung Pow in over a decade and I still knew every word of the intermission and recited it along with the characters. I used to literally watch that movie every single day when I came home from school
Weewuwuweewuweeweewuwoowee!
The bike is an exploration reward for checking out the bike shop and talking with people at the Pokemon fan club. I do think that the bike shop could better encourage exploration by explaining that bike vouchers are a thing that exists to give away bikes and "I just gave my last one away" to spell out that one of the NPCs probably has it instead of just random tutorial nonsense.
I kinda, vaguely remember 1 (one) NPC telling you that they got a bike voucher for a bicycle somewhere, but it has been so long I might just be confusing that with a different game or even a hackrom.
To be absolutely fair, though, games back then were made this way on purpose to lengthen playtime or just for replay value.
Yeah see that would have been a better way to get the player into thinking "Huh, maybe I can find this bike voucher somewhere" If it was mentioned in the game that they exist and someone out there might have one because they were just given one.
You'd probably have had less people missing out on it if that was the case, hah. But you know, you live, you learn, kind of thing.
Okay as a amateur game designer myself, I'll play along to the guessing game.
It's designed as a teaching moment. Once the player has gotten the ticket and handed it over, it's been taught to them that exploring and talking to EVERY npc can sometimes yield great rewards. Because the target audience of the game - children - are less likely to think in terms of game design, that also doesn't feel like they've just done it the one way it's possible. To a kid it probably felt *possible* that IF they got that much money, they could buy the bike - so that voucher really does feel like a one million dollar discount.
GF couldn't have planned for Pokemon's absolutely MASSIVE success, but given how popular the game was and the social element to it, this design element works even better. Only one kid has to figure this out in a friend group, and they'll probably tell the others - instilling in them the desire to talk to every NPC too.
I wasn’t expecting this and wasn’t excited to watch it, but I still appreciate your insight.
You’re the first RUclipsr I’ve found who breaks down Pokémon game design. I’m glad your Onix video made its way into my recommended videos. I think I was watching discussion videos about Pokémon SV and the current state of the modern mainline Pokémon games
That retro art of Trainer on the bicycle feels so nostalgic, I love it. I’d put a fat head of that in my game room
I think there's more to it.
There was also the obvious reason, they needed to offer a faster way to move on the map, but giving the bike from the beggining would take the important part of appreciating the scenarios, the bike is meant as a help further into the gameplay, but giving it a lower price, would make people to be able to afford unnecessary amounts of it.
But giving it randomly also would be a problem, because if Bike is a thing on this world, there was needed a way to be accessible for the people. It's part of the world building.
So making a store was necessary for world building, and the prize unattainable made sense why there was only a few people with bikes and blocks you to get many of them, and then they use it as a way to help you move, by giving in a side quest. That also allows you to explore more and have other objectives beyond the original path, the main goal.
I think it would be fun to look at the different instances of wild boss Pokemon (Totems, Nobles, Titans, and any other instances of a wild Pokemon serving as a boss) to see what meaningful differences exist between the different approaches to making a single Pokemon a whole boss.
I really like Eternatus in this. A ridiculously strong, unobtainable, eternally dynamaxed form for an already strong mon is a great idea for a memorable boss
If this extends to Ultra Necrozma, I feel like it (the topic, not the video) will get a rather sizable amount of negative criticism similar to his Slaking video. Many of the regular totems work since they typically only have a single stat boosted and are boosting a regular stats similar to yours (similar to a regular enemy just getting a free Sword Dance or Agility) or get an Omni boost buffing overall mediocre stats (Ribombee).
Necrozma just says "F that" and gives a double Omni boost to legendary tier stats, making his m a typical JRPG boss in a game whose combat system doesn't work with enemies having stats exponentially higher than yours.
@@anthonyk3952 isn't that like. The point of the ultranecrozma battle tho?
Besides, you can just bring a Zoroark transformed into a pokemon weak to psychich and you're gonna be fine lmao
@@anthonyk3952 Maybe, though I will note that it's not a double omni-boost, plus it can be cheesed with any Steel type or a Zoroark. Considering how good of a type Steel is, many players will most likely grab one, plus the fight conveniently takes place right when it's possible to obtain powerful Legendary Pokemon for your team, which far fewer players will do but is an option.
my guess was that it encourages players to explore the world, talk to NPCs, and feel like they won something extra special. i thought i was wrong til i realized that's basically what a side quest is
I don't disagree it's a side quest, but it is a little obtuse as one. For one it's not an NPC that tells you to do anything and the UI for it is a shop so there's no reason to assume it's a quest other than the price tag. However the game has never conditioned you to see the shop as an extra activity. And secondly, the place you get the bike voucher is a pokemon fan club? Which has nothing to do with bikes at all. I just wish the clerk would say something like, 'we had a competition lately and maybe you can get a voucher from someone' or something to that effect to make it more clearer.
That said, good video as always, I greatly enjoy your content and keep up the good work!
I think the bike and its voucher also serves as an optional tutorial for how to get strength later. Since for strength you need to trade/give the safari zone warden his dentures and in return get the hm for strength.
I disagree with you about Super Paper Mario - a lot of players are COMFORTED by the idea that they could theoretically grind the currency if they wanted to, because it means the game isn't 'cheating' them. If a game tells you a path is possible, but secretly makes it impossible (even if it openly points out that it's improbable), a lot of players find that bait-and-switch frustrating EVEN IF they would never want to take that impossible path in the first place. The fact that you can treadmill for 11 hours and clear the chapter without stealing, even if it justifiably requires you to still grab the mandatory progression Pixi before or after, means the game is 'keeping its word'. The ludicrous price tag is enough of a deterrent - making it impossible just tells the player that the game doesn't trust you to understand what it's trying to teach you.
Even if it's a poorly handled sidequest, the implementation did everything a sidequest SHOULD DO. It offers a useful, but not needed reward, it has a simple, easily doable means of completion, and that insane price tag goes a long way to making players remember it.
As far as the last point goes, even in games with objectively better sidequest tracking and handling, how many might say they have something that stands out so much - for better or worse?
I think it's also intended to provide a hint to players about the need to backtrack from Vermilion city to Cerulean city - and that this backtracking _is_ possible.
After all, consider the (somewhat questionable although probably thematic) one-way route from Pewter City to Cerulean City. That would probably lead to some players assuming that backtracking (at least after a gym battle) isn't allowed (as they physically cant backtrack to Pewter City from Cerulean City). However, upon eventually reaching Vermilion City (and doing the SS Anne, obtaining Cut, and defeating Lt. Surge), we know that one needs to return to Cerulean and then go from there to Route 9.
By giving the player the bike voucher in Vermilion, in turn encouraging the player to go back to Cerulean to collect it, this encourages the player to backtrack - where they will probably notice the cut tree to Route 9, which they can then cut down to continue their journey.
(And if they don't backtrack via the easy route, instead opting to take the only other option of the lengthy diversion via Diglett's Cave, they'll end up back in Celadon and notice the entrance to Route 9 eventually)
I always wondered why you couldn't backtrack to Pewter from Cerulean.
I remember having to restart a save file because I felt I couldn't grind in the grass to prepare for the gym....
My answer to the question at the beginning is "Tchekhov's Rifle" (I only know the french name so I'm not sure about the translation), and it still seems like a good answer to me at the end :)
Sure, it is a side quest, but it works like a Tchekhov's Rifle, as you see it and know it has to be important. It's not here for no reason, so if you cannot get it now, it'll be available later.
I understood it easily as a kid at the time (5 y.o.), so it seems like it's working ^^
"chekhov's gun" is the english term
@13:27 you also have a pokemon avatar which is a GAME all about grinding.
you grind for items, you grind for lvls, you grind for money.
its all about the grind baby.
My guess is that the absurd price is presented so that the player feels more gratification/excitement when they get it for absolute free. Many stores will often have items that are on sale 100% of the time, almost never selling for their actual baseline price, with said baseline price often even being inflated so that the "On sale" price matches what the company wanted to sell it for in the first place. The reason for this, as psychological studies show, is that we will still see that item as being higher quality/more desirable, even if it is the exact same item. Extra credits had a great video on this in regards to JC penny.
If I had to guess, I think the design thought process here from the developers was "Well, lets see how far we can crank that shit up". Adding what is essentially just purely a narrative context to give this the illusion of being more important/hard to get than it actually is. Not only did the player unlock a convenient movement mechanic, but now also feels like they saved on a huge amount of money
Something that should probably be noted every time the bike price is brought up: 1 Poke Dollar is about equal to 1 yen, which is about equal to 1 cent. It wouldn't make any sense for lemonade to cost $350, but it makes perfect sense for it to cost $3.50.
So the bike actually costs $10,000, which is still a pretty crazy price for a bike. So they're either way overpriced, or the only bikes in Kanto are super high end racing/mountain bikes.
I actually quite like this method of implementing side quests. My most memorable experiences getting a cool item or something have been through this particular style of side quest. Something about having side quests listed in a quest tracker makes it feel like little more than a checklist of tasks in more modern games to me. The way these classic games had to force you to remember that one unusual thing and think felt so much more rewarding when I explored and completed the side quest.
For my guess, I'm looking at two aspects. Firstly, how it's obtained, and secondly, what it does.
While you started out by saying how it's obtained through the Voucher, that's not the full story. You obtain the Voucher by talking to the Fan Club President. Then, you get the bike from the bike shop. You obtain it through interactions of 2 random NPCs you need to find.
Secondly, all the bike does is let you go fast. You can access Cycling Road without a bike if you just keep trying to enter over and over again, as well as going south of Lavender to achieve the same destination, meaning the Bike is not required. It's an optional item that can speed up your movement through the game.
Because you obtain it by finding and talking to people, and you don't HAVE to get it, my guess is that it's a reward for exploring, designed to encourage more of it going forward, while not impeding anyone's game in a detrimental way if missed or ignored.
Addendum: Perhaps I was correct in a roundabout way? I'll leave it to you to decide.
my thought was that it was to get the player thinking about inventory management and money. When you get to cerulean, you have two options progression wise: nugget bridge, or Misty. I just happened to choose nugget bridge and when I got the nugget for the first time as a kid I thought maybe if I sold it I could afford the bike. I couldn't obviously, but I thought maybe it was something I could save up for over the course of the game so I battled every trainer I could to get more money and kept an eye out for more nuggets and stuff I could sell until I got stuck at some point after getting surf in the safari zone and doubled through Vermillion at some point and eventually got the bike voucher
5:00 The reason is: make It memorable by using an emocional experience. Making It unaffordable leads tô you geting pissed, so that emotion makes a callback and the player remembers were to Go to finish the quest line.
I wouldn't even say the bike is just a side quest. It's designed like that to get you to go back to Cerulean City after you have Cut and the Voucher, which is where you have to go in the main quest anyway to head towards Rock Tunnel. Having the player think "ha, now I can go back and get that bike" also sets them up to be exactly where they need to be to continue the game.
Without the bike, yeah the player will probably figure it out eventually because it's the only way to proceed to a new area, but the player might spend a lot of time wandering around the rest of the game world and getting blocked before they figure it out. Could get frustrating. Having the bike side quest is a way to guide the player to where they need to go without doing the obnoxious modern Pokemon thing of having NPCs constantly tell you exactly what to do.
If this was a modern Pokemon game, you'd get the bike for free your first time in Cerulean and some obnoxious loser like Hop or Hau would stand outside Diglet's cave and ban you from exploring the next route and finding that you're eventually blocked by Snorlax. As soon as you get the badge from Surge, your mom or the professor would call you on whatever phone gadget the game has and tell you "go back to Cerulean and head east." You would never be allowed to play the game for yourself, it'd just constantly tell you where to go and what to do.
The $1,000,000 bike and bike voucher are a much less invasive way to guide the player to where they need to go. Instead of forcing the player to go where they need to go with unskippable dialog, the player makes a choice to go back to Cerulean because they want that bike, they want to complete the side quest. It makes the player feel like they're making choices and playing a game, rather than feeling like they're being taken on a guided tour.
When you asked about the question of why the bicycle had to be priced at 1000000.
I didn't immediately think, oh it's a sidequest, but more like... it let's the player know that it's theoretically obtainable, so they remember it.
Thinking it's something locked behind game progression... so by playing the game further they remember to get it later when they are supposed to.
Obviously that isn't quite it, because if it was just for game progression, you'd get the bike simply in a later town... but I didn't think too much about it in 30 seconds.
It being a sidequest makes sense.
The $1million dollars bit was priceless. Great job
It's been a long time since i played first gen but i didn't remember the bike was optional, that makes more sense, my hypothesis was that they gave it an artificial value because it has no use in battle, so by making it look more valuable the player could feel like they got something important, despite being only to access the next area, but that doesn't sound like the best game design idea to me.
Honestly the best way to do this tbh, would be for the npc to say that the current bikes are already bought and they're just waiting for the owners to come get it.
With the fanclub npc instead of giving a bikey vouncher, giving some kind of signature or something that make the bike npc go "ok they gave you permission, you can get it".
My answer was, "To make the player to explore the map more intently". In a sense that's what sidequests do in order to complete them but there's more nuance in a more specific answer.
My guess is that after beating Surge, the map is designed so that you have to go through the cave near cerulean. So the devs probably wanted to create a reason for players to go from Vermillion, where the voucher is given, back to Cerulean once the player was done with the main story stuff (SS Anne and Gym Battle) there and starts exploring the city a bit more. And the price being $1000000 was supposed to be a sign to the players that the bike wasn't actually going to be bought using your actual ingame currency since the number is way too high.
It's kind of funny I got recommended here because just last week a student of mine who's really into retro games was playing Pokemon Blue and asked me how to proceed passed the Snorlax on the right of Vermillion. And while sending him towards the cave, I kind of noticed how getting the bike was also not too off from it.
when you said about side quests in those older games i immediatly thought of Final Fantasy 4, (okay i thought of chrono trigger, but FF 4 is a better example), in FF 4 there is side quest that goes like this:
there is a retired blacksmith that says he will only work if you provide him with adamantite ore, then on another side of the map there is a guy who found adamantite, and will only trade you for an item that will expand his collection of creature tails, then in an random chest in a dungeon you find an item called "rat tail", you then trade it for the adamantite, which give to the blacksmith, which will reforge your sword as Excalibur. and that is it.
I hope you're taking into account that without any editing to that intermission clip, it could get copyright struck or something.
Great video, by the way.
Best thing about not depending on RUclips as a job is not needing to care about losing money via copyright strikes and being free to edit stuff however I want
There have been SO MANY memes done with the Kanto bike, thanks for the video!
0:38 love the cerulean city edit
The bicycle is optional but difficult to miss if you are progressing normally. At least in Gen1. However the voucher means it is not only a gatekept reward that prevents acquisition before a certain point but means the player will never be at a point where they wasted the resources to buy it.
By relying on money a player gives up consumables they need for their journey. Potions for their pokemon, pokeballs to catch new ones and access to new items needed. Since money only comes from trainers, meowth battles, and the elite four it is a finite resource that makes the early game a challenge.
I mainly saw it as a way to get you to talk to more random NPCs in case they had their own special sidequests or rewards
To me the reason the bike is that expensive is to shock the player, so they don't forget about the bike when they get the voucher. This also coincides with getting cut, which Cerulean has two trees to be cut, one of which is the path forward, so even if you don't remember these trees, the bike will probably be enticing enough to go get a look back at Cerulean.
I figured the bike being set at 1m is to heighten the excitement of the voucher, and getting the bike.
"Oh, cool, a free bike." Vs "holy crap! I didn't think I'd EVER get the bike!"
Last bike I bought was a Marin Quad XC. That was a $2500 bike but that's partially because it was an experimental mountain bike with cantilever suspension. I'd say between 1000-3000 is about right.
Remember this is why Misty Followed Ash in the Anime, because he destroyed her Bike!
Pokémon's currency is based on Yen. 1 million Yen is 66.76 thousand dollars. What the fuck kind of bike costs more than a car?
Don't even need to watch the video to know it will be great !
Ready to learn
I didn't remember how you got the bike and that it was missable. So my guess was that the point was to hype up the bike. As I always pretty easily got the bike voucher, I remembered getting that as innevitable. My thought was that by showing the bike fiist, it would turn from "here's a bike" to "here's that one unoptainable item that you have been thinking about ever since you saw it".
Furthermore, it felt like a realistic price for a bike for me as a kid. I had to save up money for so long until I got one and then my parents still payed most of it. And I had no feeling for large numbers. Anything lower than 1000000 would have felt unbefitting of something as cool as a bicycle for child-me
Clearly its there because it gets you thinking about how big the world is, and makes the bike coupon just this really "oh yeah cool, i gotta go back and get that, isn't that awesome that area is still useful" and there are other hidden caves and areas like that in the game.
I do think better would've been "there is a wait list, we'll inform you once you can pickup your bike" and interacting with said npc reminds you to check your mail or go back to the bike shop or cuts in the queue.. etc.
2:30 alright, let's think game design as a non designer.
I can think of teasing the bike as a feature early on, since it's near the second gym, making the player think about how much faster they could go while they walk through the next part of the game. So when they get the Bike voucher (I only played FRLG once so I forgot when you get it) you are excited and backtrack to the town you already know the bike is at.
It's kind of a tchekovs gun in that sense. Players expect to be able to get the bike somehow when they see it on offer. They just don't know how. Maybe they thought the further you are in the easier it is to get money, so they can buy it later on when the are further into the game, which also makes it more suprising when you get the voucher. But for that to work, the voucer needs to be given to the player directly in the story, otherwise they might miss it. On the other hand the bike could also be a reward for exploring the game throughly if it wasn't as obvious where to get it.
Edit: 2:42 I knew that, and it doesn't change my idea, but since you could only a lot of money from the elite 4, you would hope that no one actually tries to grind that much money in hopes of actually getting it. Then again, players are humans with mysterious ideas and plans.
GOOD KUNG POW REFERENCE! WONDERFUL CHOICE!
I think my favorite part about the bike is that (due to glitches) it's not even required for Cycling Road.
When I played Pokémon Leaf Green for the first time, I expected to receive the bicycle when I arrive in Cerulean City because it was that easy in Pokémon Sapphire. I ended up reaching Indigo Plateau without the bicycle until I finally discovered how to get the bicycle without using the internet.
Could you explain why the Johto gym leaders use so many Kanto Pokemon instead of Johto Pokemon? Like why doesn't Falkner have a Hoothoot instead of Pidgey? Why doesn't Bugsy have a Ledyba or Pineco instead of Metapod and Kakuna? Why doesn't Chuck have a Hitmontop instead of Poliwrath?
It is a side quest but it also encourages exploration and back tracking which encourages the player to gather more Pokemon.
13:03 There is a good reason to leave the grinding in. It's sort of an in-joke between the developer and the player in which the developer and player both know that grinding is both boring and not the correct solution. The developer allows it anyway because it is completely on the player whether they deliberately make a fool of themselves or not. Showing an open trust towards your player can make the game feel like it's working with you rather than dictating itself to you.
Yeah, with all the grinding that exists in the pokemon franchise in general, I don’t think it was done ironically
@@SerDerpish I meant in the context of that specific moment in Paper Mario.
Personally, I always thought the price of the bike was so obscenely high so that when you do get the voucher for the bike, most people would feel very happy. Getting a
$1 million bike for free.
I thought it was just to encourage the player to return to Cerulean City. If I'm not mistaken (and I very well could be, I haven't played Kanto very much), the only way to advance is use Cut on a tree in Cerulean to head eastward to Lavender. If the player doesn't remember they can go that way, having them backtrack to Cerulean will put them in the right place (also, the layout of Cerulean forces you to walk right past the eastern exit if you're coming from Vermillion and trying to get back to the bike shop; the player might see it and think "Wait, why didn't I go this way again? Oh, right, there's a tree in the way. But I can get past that now, lemme just grab the bike first,").
Honestly, while I understand that it is an optional sidequest, I have always got the bike through the voucher simply because I have never once ignored the fan club even by accident. Maybe they could have had done it another way, but after my first time in the bike shop, I have only visited it when I come back from Lt.Surge with the Bike Voucher, never before.
I still want you to do the rival in gen 1. How he both shows you how and how not to play the game. He uses balance but evolves his mons too early. And hes always ahead of you!
Three more things:
(Long additional speculative analysis ahead, read at your own risk.)
To me, the ludicrous price tag is also part of the incentive; in and of itself: if the bike is hypothetically that expensive, then it must be "valuable" to the player, or worth having and thus worth exploring and backtracking to get. Basically, because you cant have it, it becomes more desirable. It's psychological forbidden fruit.
Second, the player, as well as the protagonist, are assumed to still be relatively young kids, within a capitalist society, and often part of that experience is seeing things you want but realizing you can't have them, because as a child you probably have like, no money. Money tends to be the thing that parents use, that you would have to ask them to buy something or earn it through allowance and chores and such. To be in that position, you might initially be overwhelmed by the price tag, or disappointed that you dont and probably wont ever have enough to get it. But then! After a bit of waiting, going through the game, you just so happen to speak with someone who gives you a bike voucher! If you remembered the bike shop from earlier, its going to be really satisfying for a kid to get to "earn" their own big ticket item like that, subverting their expectations and understanding of their role in society, and acting as a moment of triumph over your limited means. Kind of delayed gratification, overcoming the obstacle that seemed insurmountable makes the reward all the sweeter.
Plus, this was also back in the day before information on the internet was wide spread, so its very much a moment of "woah, billy on the playground has the bike? i thought that was impossible to get!" and maybe billy tells you how he did it, or maybe he doesnt, but either way you had a notable experience, and a reason to go back to your own copy of the game to see if you can also get it. Its a shared experience you probably have in common with most people who played through that part of the game, forming a sense of connection and community.
But thats me spinning the sociopsychological reasons why the game devs may have made that decision. Ultimately, what we know is that the decision was made, and the result was memorable in different ways for everyone who experienced it.
I should probably sleep now.
I always thought it was for kids, as a fun super high number. But at the same time, showing the origin of the game... The game is meant to be imagination for the kid...
Why are all the NPCs the same? Because you're imagination is making you pretend they're actually different from their not...
Why can oak know everything you're doing??? Because he's actually babysitting and you're being watched by him and you're not actually going out...
Why is team rocket so easy and the police incompetent? Because you're imagining beating them...
Why is the bike a million dollars? Because to kids who can't afford it, it might as well be and it's just a big number for them to imagine... And you only get the bike when your parents buy it for you
2:49 This has become one of your best videos just by that 999 reference XD
(P.D: Play 999 everyone)
Radiant Historia has a fast forward and a full skip function. Since the gameplay has you going through the same cutscenes multiple times it is basically required.
That beggining was really funny on the real world too
I assumed the high cost served to increase percieved value of the item, which makes getting it free feel even more special
Grind lovers like me would fall into an endless pit for an eternity. Its like an illness that makes you check every thrash can, shake every tree and talk to every npc just to not miss a single thing. Side quests and grinding first, main story last.
a professional mountain bike is around $10,000 so compensating for Yen is to add roughly 00 (roughly two zeros) which is 1 million yen
I just want to say it makes me irrationally happy when you use kung pow: enter the fist clips in your videos. I love that movie 🎉. I was more of a Kung Fu Hustle fan growing up and it wasn't until adulthood that i really grew to appreciate this movie. I always quote this movie to my husband. "You go that way, I'll go home!" "Rub it all in my hair" "how do you like my nut to fist style?" "Again with the squeaky shoes?" "Product placement Taco Bell, enchirito macho burrito". Being a massive Pokémon Fan its fun seeing you combine the two in edits. I like your videos and explanations, keep up the great work 👍 😊
I agree with almost all of this but I have one small nitpick. The bicycle wasn't designed the way it is because it's an optional sidequest, it's an optional sidequest because of how it was designed. I said it was a nitpick. "Optional sidequest" is a description of the final product of a lot of interesting design choices that you did discuss in the video but it took 14 minutes to get there because we got distracted by sidequest systems.
Very enjoyable video but I do wish we had more analysis of the bike's function before jumping straight to the answer.
P.S. I don't know how to write a compelling video script, my opinion is no more valuable than any other rando on the internet.
Appreciate the Kung pow intermission lol
my logic for the bike; step one - world building [bikes are a thing and can be sold in retail], step two - ensuring proper game progression [Running Shoes 2.0 only available "after" gym 2]. comes with accidental world building of pokeballs having a resource priority of metals, resulting in bikes normally being a luxury item in at least the earlier regions
Watched more video and i will point out the route right after cerulean, a route you have access to technically before you beat misty, has meowth, which can learn Pay Day. so you have the option of an endless money stream that way... so you get to see that the bike is impossible to buy as you walk with shame and a L100 Persian
I just left a thumbs up for the Kung Pow bit.
the bike is intended to be mandatory for progression, I definitely wouldn't call it a side quest.
I figured that it was to make you feel the bike was precious. This way, you're incentivized to backtrack if/when you get the Bike Voucher, because it's been assigned a high monetary value and so you're likely to not deem backtracking a waste of time.
that's funny because they did the insanely pricey bike thing in diamond and pearl except the bike is necessary to progress.
but i guess that was just a reference to the first game.
I just assumed they made it 1 million because the game can't count above that, but forgot that as a child, I didn't know that. But I distinctly remember getting the bike anyway, because I just ended up getting the voucher by exploring.
The comparison between modern side quests and this one is interesting. It does make total sense to put them both in the side quest category, but in my mind, the bike was always... different. It feels more like the trading quests in old 2D Zelda games (which usually span the entire game and result in some awesome reward for remembering all the NPCs you met that needed something). Something optional, but tangible enough that it might just not be optional (a blind player wouldn't know). I know, it doesn't make sense to cxonsider it something other than a side quest. If anything, this just made me actively realize how much the concept changed. I even remember a period when they were in an odd middle evolution. In Sword of Mana on the GBA, there are a bunch of fetch quests that really just amount to farming up generic items (like a fetch quest today) for a generic reward. But, there is no quest log yet, no marker differentiating these NPCs from anybody. It felt so strange, playing that game in 2020 because in my mind, I totally equated these quests to the old Zelda and Pokemon style sidequest of "I'll totally get something useful" (because the game was old)but in actuality was playing a modern throwaway fetch quest (IF I managed to find the NPC again)
So the best I can calculate the bike would cost would be between 2,333 and 3,333 USD. Back in 96 an average soda from a vending machine would have been between 35 or 50 cents in rural areas. This is why the soda is twice the price in celadon. So that puts the conversion at either 300 or 428.57... Pokedollars to one USD. So the bike guy dealt in high end specialty bikes. We could be less generous and do a 200 to one conversion rate and say 4444, but that's the lowest I'd consider as 100:1 would make it 1.50 for a soda and back then that would have been outrageous in most places. Let's look at slowpoke tails. Pricing in order from 428:1 down to 200:1 we're looking at 22$, then 32, then 49. Those numbers are certainly comparable to a fresh lobster or Alaskan king crab prices.
So let's see...a gold nugget nets 5k. An oz of gold in 1996 would have been 387. Meaning a gram was 13.8something. So a nugget was just a gram. 5000 divided by 428 gets us 16.66... repeating. Dividing 5k by 13.82142 gets us 361.757. 1 million divided by 361.757 gets us a final total of $2,764 for the bike. 27.09 for the slowpoke tails and 41 cent for the soda. Honestly, without wasting more time on this than I already have, this sounds about right
Shit, lmk if y'all want me to try my hands at the RUclips thing and dig into this a little further. Could be fun
I figured it was priced that way to demonstrate its value and utility as an item. That way, once you get it for free, you feel like you got a great deal and are super excited to use it. But you're not wrong that it also creates a sidequest.
A Kung Pow reference was the last thing I thought I'd see today but here we are and I'm over the moon
Excellent Analysis! Your explanation is better than the bike being filled with drugs.
I figured this would be as a way to force backtracking and move foward with the game. Since the only Pokemon game to do the "on the last episode bit" is LeafGreen and FireRed and being their first game, would be an organic and natural way to remind players of the cut mechnaic and the side route through Rock Tunnel, aka, progression, after long rests between playtimes since guides were scarace during the game's inception and intial release.
The bike is in the same vein as the flying ship in classic Final Fantasy games. NPCs will tell you how the King got this ship that can fly by some feat of magic, but obviously he would never give a treasure like that away. That is, until you save the kingdom later in the game.
Since Pokémon is smaller in scale, we're only talking about a bike and the player's great feat is... listening to the ramblings of an old man.
The bike shop is showing off that the option to ride a bike exists early. (If you skip the building entirely, you might learn of bikes when you can't enter the bike road.) The ridiculous price hopefully tips the player off that there's an alternative way to get a bike. This incentivizes the players to explore the world more thoroughly, instead of just skipping from gym to gym.
I had no idea it was possible to get to Fuchsia City without going through cycling road.
Kung pow intermission, i wish i could sub twice
My thought process for that price is that they want you to come back to it. But, they also want to make sure you can’t afford it by any means so that there’s an in universe answer as to why the man will never give you one until you get the voucher. Forcing the player to explore. Also, $1m yen is $6600 usd for comparison. More than I’d ever spend on a bike, but a somewhat less egregious amount
Gen 1 is designed with something of a "child adventure" mentality, so I think that also played a role when designing the 1.000.000 bicycle. A bike isn't something a child would usually be able to afford themselves, but wouldn't be unusual as a gift.
So my reason for the bike being so high in price was similar and different.
The gen 1 games were before the running shoes were introduced. So because of this, you move very slowly because you can only walk.
By the time you reach Cerulean City, some players may be so tired of the slow walking speed, especially after Mt. Moon. That they might just want to quit the game right then.
To stop players from doing this, the developer's dangle these keys infront of the player in the form of the bycicle. An item that cant be obtained but you could assume will increase your movement speed.
So this encourages players that are about to quit to keep going because at some point later, you will be able to move faster.
Now there are some issues with my reasoning. Those being, why not just give the bike to the player to just solve the movement speed issue and thus, the quiting issue entirely. And B, why show it to the player and come back later then just letting the player find it and fix the speed issue then.
And yeah, thats fair. And while it is solved by the Sidequest reason a bit. My reasoning does have some flaws, but I am proud of coming up with it at least.
Honestly, your channel is really great. As it has made me think of things in different ways and appreciate things I didnt before, like Geeta.