I’m not surprised at the Miyamoto not wanting Pokémon to be an RPG. He said something similar about The Legend of Zelda at one point. He has stated in the past that he is just not a fan of the RPG genre as a whole. I’m glad Tajiri held his ground. The RPG core of the series is what has continued to keep it relevant all these years later.
@@Zelink108 I understand trying to change the direction of a new franchise that was still in development, but Paper Mario was established already. He really didn't have the qualifications to dictate how it changed, even if he owned the original IP. It was a bad call that he clearly lacked the correct frame of mind to make -- someone who hates RPGs should never be in charge of the future of an RPG series.
@@maidor This is a common argument that misunderstands Pokémon as a whole, usually from people who stopped playing it. I can't even blame you for it, and I'll explain why, but hear this out for a second. Your conclusion is misplaced, but the idea of it is entirely understandable. First, it needs to stay as an RPG of some kind at this point. Its sheer scale as a monster collecting game with enormous customization in a large open (sometimes) world necessitates the format of an RPG. As a matter of fact RPGs are commonly chosen for such complex systems for that very reason, it's much easier to manage them. The complexity is what keeps players around for the postgame and subsequent games, even when there isn't a _real_ postgame anymore. To uproot the main franchise and make it no longer an RPG is to shoot your foot because you knee hurts; it solves nothing and gets rid of a perfectly functioning limb. The real issue is the directors' decision to remove features every game to keep the past ones "unique." Evolutions are made constantly, especially in the core RPG mechanics themselves (playing Gen 1 competitively and Gen 8 competitively are wholely different activities -- browse any competitive history video or a gen 1 glitch compilation, and you'll find that out fast). The problem is, every time they've added in one new feature since Gen 5, they've taken away three more. Despite constant evolution, they purposely decide to discard proven ideas for the sake of keeping each generation "unique." So, despite changing things up constantly, people are tossing themselves off of the Pokémon hype train because as soon as anything cool is announced, it's assumed that it's not going to stick around anyways -- meanwhile, their favourite features from previous generations get axed. Nothing feels new, because nothing is permanent, so the only permanent thing (the root RPG mechanics from Gen 1) is the only thing acknowledged. The directors have achieved their goal of making every generation unique, but as a result, there is very little motivation for existing fans to move on to the next game. This is especially true after they made the decision to no longer make every Pokémon from previous generations usable in new games. After all, why abandon everything you liked in your current game to spend money on a new game with more or (often) less the same amount of content? And if you do get the game, why experiment with the side content if it's never going to be around again? Tl;dr: the issue isn't the RPG core, or a lack of evolution, but rather the fact that Gamefreak is purposely discarding its own evolutions for an incredibly misguided creative decision.
@@maidor On the contrary (Serperior), they've made plenty of changes to Pokémon RPG formula over the years and done a pretty good job of keeping things fresh. However, they *can't* change the core mechanics in a main series game, or it just wouldn't be Pokémon anymore, and most long-time fans (including myself) would hate it and not even consider buying it. Thus, it will always be turn-based battles with 4 move slots and 6 party members, etc. as it always should be, and we will always love it for sticking to its core like that. If it's never broke, never fix it! The spinoffs like "Legends: Arceus" are where they get to experiment, and while many of them are also very good games, they will never be as good as the main series games. Also, "Pokken Tournament" is a *great* fighting game, not mediocre at all!
@@mythosinfinite6736 To be fair, most of the mechanical additions and updates do stay around in future generations. It's just one or two gimmicks like Triple/Rotation Battles, Sky Battles, Mega Evolution, and Z-Moves that are left unique to a single generation. Otherwise, mechanical updates like Hidden Abilities, reusable TMs, Fairy types, trainer customization, regional forms, Poké Rides, gaining EXP from catching Pokémon, etc. have stuck around in various forms. Besides, trying the next gimmick and experimenting with it within its generation is plenty of motivation even without it carrying on to the next one. For example, I love using Mega Evolutions in my Gen 6 games despite them being restricted to those games. Why would their absence in Gen 7 & 8 keep me from enjoying them in my games that do have them? Neither did it affect my motivation to later buy a Gen 7 game so I could then try out Z-Moves.
Ok I'm pretty sure I knew none of these facts. I'm guessing most of them were locked away in Japan all this time. Thanks for sharing, keen to see more like this!
Tell you the truth, Porygon was an idea with to many layers for me, as a non english speaker growing up I never heard the word polygon I guess not even on my language, I just thought it was supposed to be like an old wooden toy duck, but when I learned more about computing, english and the Porygon line was completed (and ngl many content creators too) I got the idea that Porygon was a synthetic Pokémon and it also a way to represent humanity's technological growth specially in the information era as Porygon can travel through the digital world, but since I got more used to the in universe lore explanation I never thought about the actual game design reasoning, but that's a thing.
Miyamoto already has too much say over Mario and other properties lmao, I'm glad Tajiri stood his ground. Pokemon as anything else would have been harder to deal with, imo.
I didn’t get the joke with Porygon because it doesn’t really stand out. There are a lot of Gen I Pokemon that may or may not be man-made. Besides ones like Mewtwo that are explicitly man-made, you’ve got stuff like Magnemite and Koffing that appear to be machines or are some biproduct of human activity. The Pokemon designed in the digital world just seemed to be part of this subset.
Hello, this is Pia Carrot. I should mention everything about the forest map *is* speculation, but I am very confident based on how maps between different builds of the prototypes link up that this is what it was meant to be! Thanks so much for the shoutout!
Cheers Pia :) Yeah you told me all about this and sent me maps almost two years ago now. Since then something else came along that made even *more* confident about the map’s placement, although tbh now I can’t remember what it was exactly. Maybe something in a later Gen 2 leak. I actually wrote this video like 3 months ago, and I’ve written about 5 more videos since then, so some of the details that aren’t mentioned in-video are kinda fuzzy in my memory at this point. Anyway, thanks again for the info Pia. Cheers mate :)
I LOVE the commitment to originality of information here! It's become very rare in the Poketuber space, and it's presented fantastically well! Well done, Great video, & Merry Christmas
I'd known the name Porygon was supposed to be a pun on "polygon" for years, but its specific nature of Tajiri including it to go "oh, you want me to make a game with polygons? Here's one!" is absolute gold.
The origin of badges as whips-like martial arts belts certainly explains why Pokemon would pay attention to little metal decorations their trainers earn. They originally had a discipline element to them.
@@psychokinrazalon in the manga the badges actually have some sort of mystical power that gives the trainer power towards handling Pokémon and a few other random things
I didn't know a lot of these. The Porygon one is fascinating! I kinda thought he was a representation of the graphics at the time (N64 polygons) and how as technology improved graphics got better (Porygon 2) and were hacked to do things they weren't supposed to do (Porygon Z.) The fact that Porygon was designed to be ironic is pretty funny in hindsight!
Game Graphic Glitch Gremlin was the Nerd's own way of saying "Polygons Schmolygons". Nice to see that people even back then are against the ideas of fads and how self-destructive they can be, given THAT involving ugly monkeys.
I always thought that Porygon was supposed to represent the future and how humans were on the cusp of making a technological leap. It didn't occur to me that it was supposed to be ironic that a creature made of polygons was in a sprite-based game.
Please, please continue to get this info translated. As a longtime fan its so hard to find new information on the development of Pokemon as a series, especially information that doesn't shy away from the darker undertones of the concept (and treating it matter of fact instead of making stereotypical youtuber jokes). Keep up the fantastic work!
agreed. like,i LOVE the original concept stuff of pokemon but so much of it has already been talked about 1000 times over that you don't want to just hear the same stuff over and over and over again.
@@temporal_paradox - Well this video used info from two magazines and two books. The two magazines are fully translated (well, the Pokémon stuff anyway), and one book has already had all its Pokémon stuff translated (about 130 pages, but a very very small percentage was usable unfortunately). The other book is 600 pages, and we’ve only had about 10% of it translated so far. Btw I’m the guy who writes most of the Pokémon videos on this channel. Anyway, mostly I try to combine info from various translations into one narrative (like the last Pokémon video about Mew’s origin story). And there were a few other videos I wrote between them that have one topic covered, but this video got uploaded first. This video’s basically the leftovers from these translations that didn’t fit into those other, more narrow topics. But we’re always having at least one book or magazine translated at any given time. And videos get written about what’s found in those translations as they come up. So it’s not like we had a few translations done, now we're finished and we’re milking them. We’re gonna keep translating stuff so long as the results of those translations keep turning up good info, and people keep watching them. Cheers mate.
@@DJIVision Ah, thanks for the extensive breakdown. I should clarify I didn't mean that in a negative way, I just naturally assume the translations weren't intended as charity but as an investment for content. I didn't realize that so much was still untranslated though, that's interesting.
Like sure creatively it would’ve been interesting to see this game function as a platformer or adventure game or maybe even some wild new genre or a mix we’ve never thought of. But considering that Pokémon is the most popular and profitable franchise in the history of the planet, kind of hard to say it was a bad call. Haha
realistically, there are not many genres that can reach their full potential with the limited controls of the game boy, so I think RPG was the only good choice. A Pokemon platformer or action game would have never been as big because the original game probably would not have been as good.
If they had gone with a platformer and/or action game, it would've needed a lot of backtracking to go with the ideas of individual habitats and catching 'em all, so it probably would've turned into a Metroidvania.
Tajiri was 100 percent right, with complete respect to miyamoto. I've been playing this series for 20+ years specifically for its rpg mechanics and collectable creatures
Concerning the Porygon fact, I noticed a long time ago that "Porygon" was a pun on "polygon," but I never knew the reasoning behind the creation of that Pokémon. And it makes me smile. Here they were telling Tajiri to make 3D polygon games, but little did anyone know, Pokémon would become one of the main reasons for the Game Boy continuing to be popular for another decade.
As to Pokémon being an RPG, I'm glad that it started that way. It was an easily accessible JRPG for children, but it had a lot of depth for those willing to put in the effort to explore and test things. That made it perfect for its early spread in popularity, and gave it staying power. Now, these days, Pokémon has spinoffs in many genres, ranging from tile-matching puzzle games, Picross, and pinball, to the fighting game Pokken, to a whole series of roguelike dungeon crawlers in the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon series. I'm glad we get to experiment with all these different ways to experience the world, all thanks to that first RPG. For a few new genres I think it would be cool to see Pokémon take on someday: - Open-world, "Western" Pokémon RPG. By that I don't mean a Old Western setting, with cowboys and such - though admittedly that could also be cool. I just mean the sort of RPG that is allegedly more popular in the West, the kind where the story is less linear, and player decisions can vastly change the game's story. It would be an interesting change. - A Pokémon game in the style of Monster Hunter. Either you could be a trainer controlling a Pokémon in real time, or your character itself could be a region starter Pokémon. Every combat encounter would feel difficult and significant. You could be sent out on missions to fight big, powerful Pokémon, eventually needing to fight rampaging Legendary and Mythical Pokémon. - A Pokémon RTS game. I know those aren't as popular anymore, but I'm still curious what that would look like. (I would also suggest a MOBA Pokémon game, but that's basically what the Pokémon Rumble spinoffs are.) - Some kind of Pokémon flight simulator/aerial racing game. Whether it would be based on trainers riding flying Pokémon, or just playing as the Pokémon themselves, I think it would feel really cool. - Does a Pokémon tower defense game already exist? Well, if it doesn't, I also think that would be interesting. - This may be the biggest pipe dream of all, but it would be so cool if we could ever have some kind of 3D puzzle-platformer in the Pokémon universe, sort of in the style of Legend of Zelda. Rather than getting lots of different weapons and tools to traverse dungeons, you could catch certain predetermined Pokémon at certain locations, and use their skills for the puzzle-solving. ...Yeah. I'm glad that I live at a time where it seems like the Pokémon franchise isn't going anywhere, so maybe someday I'll get to see some of these come to exist.
Sitting here dumbfounded on the Porygon part, even thinking about how the L and R switch from Japanese is a thing so it really just blew my mind on that one lol
I never grow tired of the large amounts of Pokémon info that still emerges years after Gen 1. Keep it up, I also found the Alder info interesting too. Makes sense, he does look the part of an elderly person who might be a bit out of touch with the modern world. However, he still has great knowledge of the world.
I knew that Porygon was based on polygonal graphics, but Gen 1 also had Pokemon based on Whack-a-Mole, mimes, toxic sludge, and whatever the hell Jinx is supposed to be, so I just figured it was included to give the game more variety.
Even more, most Pokemon are named explicitly in Japanese for what they are...the Legendary Birds being iconic examples: Fire, Thunder, and Freezer. They literally named a Pokemon based on the mythological thunder-bird "Thunder". So a Polygon-themed Pokemon named "Polygon" is straight-up Gen 1 Japanese naming conventions.
Jynx is most likely based on the Yamanba/Yamauba, a mountain crone with dark skin, blond hair, a prominent mouth and a red dress. She also has control over winter weather.
@@leetri jynx doesn't have dark skin, she's like tangela and cloyster, pokemon that hide their faces. In the stadium games and gb puzzle league shows that she's just the blonde hair trying to be human
I'm so glad Pokemon was an RPG. I wouldn't have it any other way. The spin offs are epic in their own right and I love them too. But the core series must remain RPG. The best single player experiences of all time!
I also just learned about Porygon being intentionally ironic from this video, lol. I always knew it was obviously based on a computer-generated 3-D figure from the time period, but the reason behind it being based on that was what I never knew. As for Pokemon's genre, I can't really say that Tajiri was right or wrong. It is still a very successful RPG, obviously, but I do feel like using different RPG styles at the least like Final Fantasy does would at the least be interesting.
@@theblackgamer8103 Well, even back then, they did still experiment a bit, such as with the Active Time Battle. But at least as far as I've seen, really the only main Final Fantasy game to actually be mostly hated; outside of sequels like 10-2; is 13. Granted, I don't follow the fandom that much, so I'm not completely sure.
I've been playing Pokemon ever since it came out during my late-teens. I never once considered Porygon to be ironic as much as stylistic. Like, if I had been asked why I thought Porygon was in the game, I would have said _"Well, there are other electronic Pokemon, like Magnemite and Electrode, so Porygon is just another Electronic Pokemon, just in style, not type."_ And since CG computer graphics was primitive back then, that was the best design they could give Porygon in-world.
It's cool how a game formed from the developer's nostalgia has itself become nostalgic for so many people. Even as the games lag behind in content and graphics and pretty much everything else nowadays, its core tenants of battling and collecting critters will always have appeal
I'm impressed - I knew some information presented in this video, like beta Gold and Silver (not its entirety but at least the beta Pokémon), but all the main points of each fact are brand new to me. Every PokéTuber who does a "Top 10 facts you didn't know" video all end up being the same collective facts, to a point where I will be impressed to hear ONE new fact. You guys were able to present me with completely new facts, which is honestly mind boggling. Thank you for your hard work
I mean the more I learn about him the more I think he needs out of the industry or should only be allowed to work on his own new games and more allowed to influence anything else
@@kidthegeek You do realize that without Miyamoto Pokemon wouldnt even exist? People can have differing views and opinions, that's okay. It worked out in the end.
@@Omar_E11 yet his decisions on just about anything are completely out of touch. Just about anything I find out I don't like that has changed in a series is due to him. 10 years ago I worshipped the ground he walked on.
@@kidthegeek People to like to rise Miyamoto to this godlike standard, but not every call has to be a genius one. The truth is people are just unhappy with modern-day Paper Mario and they like to make Miyamoto the punching bag for that, even though he was only involved with Sticker Star and barely anything else. The truth is, Nintendo would be no where without his mind.
The thought of Creatures inc feeling bad that Tajiri presented an idea similar to what they ALREADY had in production. So they just made his instead is adorable and hilarious.
Given that collecting and battling a whole bunch of different monsters is the whole point of Pokemon, I can't imagine what it would be if NOT an RPG. That said, now that the technology has really progressed, I would kill for a spinoff game which played more like Monster Hunter, where you have to put more effort into tracking and actively training Pokemon on an individual basis, instead of being randomly mobbed by low-level trash mons every couple steps, then leaving most of the ones you catch in storage.
Honestly, I'd never really thought about Porygon's origins until now. I'd just figured somebody at Game Freak liked the idea of a living computer program.
A part of me knew Porygon was suppose to be ironic, being one of my favorite gen 1 I thought it was a jab at the game itself for making electronic animals. So I guess I simultaneously got the joke and missed the joke.
It was more of a jab at chasing trends. As you can tell, it looks derpy compared to the series mascot, Pikachu. Pikachu is an iconic design that can only be made on the game boy, where the most you can get from 3D polygonal gaming was Ballz and Big Rigs. So in a sense Tojiri had the last laugh despite Pokemon Legends: Arceus trying to break away from that and is already showing signs of struggle.
@@Gaia_BentosZX5 "So in a sense Tojiri had the last laugh despite Pokemon Legends: Arceus trying to break away from that and is already showing signs of struggle." The Super Smash Bros. series, Pokemon Stadium, Pokemon Stadium 2 (JP), Pokemon Stadium GS (Stadium 2 in the west), Pokemon Coliseum, Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness, Pokémon Battle Revolution and Gen 6 onward all say hi. (Not a comprehensive list of course, just going with the biggest titles)
I always thought Porygon was suppose to reflect the evolution of computer technology that was going on in the late 90s to early 2000s, didn't know it was suppose to be a sense of irony that a polygon pokemon would exist in a spirte-based game.
I like Miyamoto and all, but the sheer amount of ego it must take to say "I'm not sure if that was the right decision." about the highest-grossing game franchise by a large margin ever is next level.
Wow even though I played pokemon gen 1 as a kid and I saw all those sprites of trainers with whips, it never occurred to me that they might be using the whips on their pokemon! I guess I just thought it was like... part of their aesthetic or whatever
Well, that and probably battling rules, like how the person that looses a battle has to give money to the winner, nobody is there to enforce that it happens but trainers do it anyways. it would be funny to have an evil organization on some future gen that uses 8 or 9 pokemons in a single battle, as if they are breaking the rules since they dont care.
If I remeber correctly, in the manga Oak mentions that the League defined 6 as enough to make a team, plus is harder to care for and raise more at once
When people catch Pokemon after they have a full party, the pokeball looks like it gets locked and can't be used and apparently, the Pokedex can be used as a sort of "portable PC" to change your current party with the Pokemon you have with you. Also, another apparent assumption is that...well, training Pokemon is extremely hard in their world. We don't notice because it's extremely simplified for the sake of gameplay but the reason why many trainers give up their own journey can be that taking care of six creatures with widely different needs and natures can be too much for a single person. So Alder carrying several pokeballs really cements him as a certified Pokemon Master because he CAN take care of that many Pokemon on his own without stuffing them on a PC.
Hmmm mahbe action rpg? You still create a character and name them and choose.appearance. You play as a character going through a journey. Still seems pretty rpg to me.
Hmmm mahbe action rpg? You still create a character and name them and choose.appearance. You play as a character going through a journey. Still seems pretty rpg to me.
Hmmm mahbe action rpg? You still create a character and name them and choose appearance. You play as a character going through a journey. Still seems pretty rpg to me
Hmmm mahbe action rpg? You still create a character and name them and choose appearance. You play as a character going through a journey. Still seems pretty rpg to me
I'll be honest, I didn't know the irony of Porygon and I've been playing since the original red and blue (ironically got red version on christmas eve of 1998, and as I'm writing this, its christmas eve). I also think Pokemon only works as an RPG. Sure there are fun spin-offs, but the strategy, adventuring, collecting and trading all work around the RPG center.
Pretty neat analysis & fact video! Love the work you do to find all this new info! Thanks so much for uploading! Personally, I like Pokemon as an RPG. It gives reason to have lots of lore & dialogue, & to have a multiple Pokemon party that battle together with a HUGE variety of abilities!
I honestly didnt think it was ironic as a kid. I was all "haha weird janky birdie". Also, Im so glad they dropped the whips for more adorable badges. I cant imagine having to whip my digital data babies in a whipping minigame.
What I keep learning from your videos is that Miyamoto is perhaps somewhat overrated as a developer. Many times he has the wrong idea that does sometimes make it into the game, like Twilight Princess's elongated tutorial section in Ordon Village.
Critics have been aware of that for years but they get silenced by people that place Miyamoto on a pedestal. He is a great developer in the 80s but he still represents a quirk of old Japanese business that dislikes taking miniscule risks.
Not necessarily. Part of what defines an inventor or artistic creative is that they often have bad ideas. It is figuring out which ideas are good, or which ideas, even if bad on their own, become good ideas when combined with the right additional idea, that is key. Thomas Edison pointed out it took him over 1,000 attempts to come up with a working and economic carbon-filament based incandescent light bulb, which became the standard for indoors lighting for over 100 years.
Rarely is someone a perfect mastermind who never makes any wrong calls. Miyamoto is included in that, being a human, so I don't see why everyone raises him up to that standard. Just because he meddled into one Paper Mario game doesn't mean he's a boogeyman ruining every game he touches... No Miyamoto, no Nintendo.
"Belts" would make sense because "gyms" are basically dojos; the "gym leaders" are testing the trainers according to their skill level, not going all out. They're all masters to some degree and employees of the Pokemon League, which is essentially the martial arts federation of Pokemon. Which also explains why they use specific types, instead of a balanced team; to also test trainers on their knowledge of type match-ups. Think about that; Brock could have probably sent out a level 60 Golem at any time and sent you back home crying but that wasn't his job, he tested you as a trainer taking a test for your first "badge".
weirdest part about alder having more than six pokeballs on him at a time is that the 6 max rule isn't some kind of pokemon world law or pokemon training rule: you CAN have more than six,it's just that most people don't because that's what the PC is for.
Thank you @DYKG for going through the trouble of not only consistently uploading new videos, but having pieces of gaming history translated. Cheers guys! Have a great New Year!
The RPG genre was perfect for pokemon back in the day because the hardware couldn't handle much more. The issue with it now is the fact that hardware evolved and pokemon (ironically) didn't. We're only just now getting a game like Legends Arceus, which I know a lot of children, myself included, had envisioned as the true essence of pokemon even back in gen 1. Pokemon should be a game where you can truly wander around and come upon a pokemon in their natural habitat, then befriend and train it until it's the strongest around. It's looking like Legends Arceus is getting pretty close to the real essence of what pokemon is. Gen 1 did the best it could to capture that essence with gameboy hardware, but it was limited to following a route's set path, allowing all pokemon that live on that route to be found in the same small patch of grass, and condensing training into using a few moves over and over until you level up. That was fine, but the GBA could do more, and might have been best to expand out of the limitations that were forced upon the series by the original gameboy. The DS, 3DS, and now the Switch have given it even more power to move past those limitations, but we've still been given games that feature the same shackles that have long since been broken for other games. Sword and Shield still feel like gameboy games despite their much stronger hardware - they still feature mostly just linear corridors instead of real exploration, patches of grass bursting with random pokemon instead of real individual habitats, and training that can turn a wild pokemon into a champion-level threat in a matter of hours. These things are not the real essence of pokemon, they are what pokemon had to settle for back in 1996, and it's well past time for us to show its true potential. The RPG genre was great for pokemon on the gameboy because it was the best way to condense a whole adventure into a few megabytes of data, but we've got dozens of gigabytes to work with now, and it's time to use them to show what a real adventure looks like.
I don't mind Pokemon being an RPG. Pokemon has been a huge part of my life and is responsible for why I love RPGs. What I DON'T like is how Pokemon in recent years has continued to fall flat in terms of game design compared to monster collecting genre RPGs both older and newer with games like Shin Megami Tensei, Dragon Quest Monsters, Digimon and ESPECIALLY Yo-Kai Watch making modern Pokemon look like a joke. That said, I still love it in spite of all its faults as an RPG.
The thing about the suicide forest IS pretty creepy, though it DOES help to explain why Misdreavus, a new Johto Pokémon, can only be found in the Kanto part of the game.
The Pokemon franchise has spawned some interesting spinoffs over the years, one of which (Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky) is a strong contender for my favorite game in the franchise. But I think the gameplay loop they chose for the core series was likely the best choice they could have made at the time, as it played very nice with what the Game Boy was capable of doing. I think any other potential genre would have been very likely to have suffered from the Game Boy's limitations, while the gameplay we ended up with works well for a portable console, and in fact I think I prefer it being on a portable system - Pokemon games are great to take on the go because of how seamlessly you can switch between playing and paying attention to your surroundings as the need arises. There's a lot more they can do with the franchise with today's technology, but if the earlier games weren't as successful, Pokemon may not still be with us today, and I think choosing a simple gameplay loop (including the specifics of the battle system) that the SNES or N64 couldn't have done better (not counting graphics) likely played an important role in making it able to be successful so late into the Game Boy's life cycle.
I never even thought about Porygon that way, even though I could definitely see the link between it and its name. Porygon has just always been one of those Pokémon I'd look at, go "Oh hey, I know that one" and then move on.
I definitely didn't realize the irony of Porygon til watching this video. I just thought it was a cool idea that there was an artificial Pokémon made with computers in-universe. Full respect to Satoshi Tajiri for his keen sense of subtle humor. Merry Christmas!
I actually like playing Pokemon mainly for catching them and not for the RPG aspect of it. I enjoyed it for the same reason as I enjoyed Mario 64, it is a good collectaton. After all, Pokemon was primarily advertised as a collectaton game over an RPG with its famous slogan, gotta catch'em all. But over the years, late entry focused more on its RPG aspect of it, then for, I lost some interest the series mainline because of it. Pokemon Go, Let's Go & Snap are the recent Pokemon games that I prefer more over the mainline, because they are more focused on the collectaton. So personality, I think Miyamoto was on to something with his claim.
Don't really go searching for hidden meanings in these games. I didn't even make that "Ruins of Alph" was Alphabet even with the Unown being an obvious hint until 20 years or so after. So Porygon's story is something new to me.
I guess elements from Toto could have made it into Creatures, Inc.'s actually released monster collecting game Chee-Chai Alien (2001) but with the insects changed to aliens. The 'insect cage' is similar to the main screen in that game but the Game Boy Color's infrared is used to grab the aliens from space. Curiously there are also capsules used to store Chaliens in that game (and Pokémon was Capsule Monsters), and the scents, dark matter are collected with vials.
Pokémon would definitely not be the cultural phenomenon it has become if it weren't an RPG IMO. The RPG aspects are what makes it so replayable and allowed it to become a game people played competitively, thus extending its life ten fold IMO
I wasn't sure about Porygon being an artificial mon based off of low-poly 3D models, but now I appreciate our little virtual-duck son even more than I did. Same goes for their evolutions, too!
Okay as a Porygon Fan the reason why it exists is so hilarious lol but I do appreciate that even tho it was supposed to be a humorous reason they did give it a fair amount of interesting lore. This makes Porygon even cooler.
So the funny thing about the Porygon fact is that it made me realize why he’s named what he is. He’s all Polygons, and in Japanese they don’t have an L sound in their alphabet and so they most commonly replace an L sound with an R sound. Porygon’s name is literally just how someone from Japan would say the word Polygon. Porygon
this video is relevant because I've been replaying the first 5 gens of pokemon lately (in no particular order because I did Emerald first and now I'm doing Red)
I got the whole Porygon/polygon connection right away, but I never realized that it was meant to be ironic. I honestly just believed the game's lore, that it was an artificial Pokémon, and that the design was just an interesting idea. I mean, if they could have a floating eyeball with magnets and a screw attached, why not a polygonal... duck thing? XD
8:22 WHAT?! Porygon was supposed to be ironic?! And here I am, a 28 year old, 21 year vet of the franchise, and savy in tech, and had no idea. Damn Taijiri is good
I’m not surprised at the Miyamoto not wanting Pokémon to be an RPG. He said something similar about The Legend of Zelda at one point. He has stated in the past that he is just not a fan of the RPG genre as a whole. I’m glad Tajiri held his ground. The RPG core of the series is what has continued to keep it relevant all these years later.
Unlike Paper Mario which Miyamoto ruined with Sticker Star and now we have the office supplies games.
@@Zelink108
I understand trying to change the direction of a new franchise that was still in development, but Paper Mario was established already. He really didn't have the qualifications to dictate how it changed, even if he owned the original IP. It was a bad call that he clearly lacked the correct frame of mind to make -- someone who hates RPGs should never be in charge of the future of an RPG series.
@@maidor
This is a common argument that misunderstands Pokémon as a whole, usually from people who stopped playing it. I can't even blame you for it, and I'll explain why, but hear this out for a second. Your conclusion is misplaced, but the idea of it is entirely understandable.
First, it needs to stay as an RPG of some kind at this point. Its sheer scale as a monster collecting game with enormous customization in a large open (sometimes) world necessitates the format of an RPG. As a matter of fact RPGs are commonly chosen for such complex systems for that very reason, it's much easier to manage them. The complexity is what keeps players around for the postgame and subsequent games, even when there isn't a _real_ postgame anymore. To uproot the main franchise and make it no longer an RPG is to shoot your foot because you knee hurts; it solves nothing and gets rid of a perfectly functioning limb.
The real issue is the directors' decision to remove features every game to keep the past ones "unique." Evolutions are made constantly, especially in the core RPG mechanics themselves (playing Gen 1 competitively and Gen 8 competitively are wholely different activities -- browse any competitive history video or a gen 1 glitch compilation, and you'll find that out fast). The problem is, every time they've added in one new feature since Gen 5, they've taken away three more. Despite constant evolution, they purposely decide to discard proven ideas for the sake of keeping each generation "unique."
So, despite changing things up constantly, people are tossing themselves off of the Pokémon hype train because as soon as anything cool is announced, it's assumed that it's not going to stick around anyways -- meanwhile, their favourite features from previous generations get axed. Nothing feels new, because nothing is permanent, so the only permanent thing (the root RPG mechanics from Gen 1) is the only thing acknowledged. The directors have achieved their goal of making every generation unique, but as a result, there is very little motivation for existing fans to move on to the next game. This is especially true after they made the decision to no longer make every Pokémon from previous generations usable in new games. After all, why abandon everything you liked in your current game to spend money on a new game with more or (often) less the same amount of content? And if you do get the game, why experiment with the side content if it's never going to be around again?
Tl;dr: the issue isn't the RPG core, or a lack of evolution, but rather the fact that Gamefreak is purposely discarding its own evolutions for an incredibly misguided creative decision.
@@maidor On the contrary (Serperior), they've made plenty of changes to Pokémon RPG formula over the years and done a pretty good job of keeping things fresh. However, they *can't* change the core mechanics in a main series game, or it just wouldn't be Pokémon anymore, and most long-time fans (including myself) would hate it and not even consider buying it. Thus, it will always be turn-based battles with 4 move slots and 6 party members, etc. as it always should be, and we will always love it for sticking to its core like that. If it's never broke, never fix it!
The spinoffs like "Legends: Arceus" are where they get to experiment, and while many of them are also very good games, they will never be as good as the main series games.
Also, "Pokken Tournament" is a *great* fighting game, not mediocre at all!
@@mythosinfinite6736 To be fair, most of the mechanical additions and updates do stay around in future generations. It's just one or two gimmicks like Triple/Rotation Battles, Sky Battles, Mega Evolution, and Z-Moves that are left unique to a single generation. Otherwise, mechanical updates like Hidden Abilities, reusable TMs, Fairy types, trainer customization, regional forms, Poké Rides, gaining EXP from catching Pokémon, etc. have stuck around in various forms.
Besides, trying the next gimmick and experimenting with it within its generation is plenty of motivation even without it carrying on to the next one. For example, I love using Mega Evolutions in my Gen 6 games despite them being restricted to those games. Why would their absence in Gen 7 & 8 keep me from enjoying them in my games that do have them? Neither did it affect my motivation to later buy a Gen 7 game so I could then try out Z-Moves.
Ok I'm pretty sure I knew none of these facts. I'm guessing most of them were locked away in Japan all this time. Thanks for sharing, keen to see more like this!
Tell you the truth, Porygon was an idea with to many layers for me, as a non english speaker growing up I never heard the word polygon I guess not even on my language, I just thought it was supposed to be like an old wooden toy duck, but when I learned more about computing, english and the Porygon line was completed (and ngl many content creators too) I got the idea that Porygon was a synthetic Pokémon and it also a way to represent humanity's technological growth specially in the information era as Porygon can travel through the digital world, but since I got more used to the in universe lore explanation I never thought about the actual game design reasoning, but that's a thing.
I didn't know about porygon. XD And many others...
Fact #8 - Even after 25 years, there are still numerous Americans pronouncing it "Pokeymon" without feeling the slightest embarrassment.
The shame is, that "Dumbass" player save is long gone, no way the battery is still good.
Miyamoto already has too much say over Mario and other properties lmao, I'm glad Tajiri stood his ground. Pokemon as anything else would have been harder to deal with, imo.
I was today years old when I found out Porygon isn't just a weird Pokemon
I'm 27 and I didn't get the porygon irony.
I thought it was ironic because it was a digital animal within a game about digital animals
I didn’t get the joke with Porygon because it doesn’t really stand out. There are a lot of Gen I Pokemon that may or may not be man-made. Besides ones like Mewtwo that are explicitly man-made, you’ve got stuff like Magnemite and Koffing that appear to be machines or are some biproduct of human activity. The Pokemon designed in the digital world just seemed to be part of this subset.
I'm one of the grown ass adults who didn't realize Porygon was supposed to be ironic :(
Ah, yes. If only pokemon were a first person shooter or a stealth action game.
Since porygon is digital and man made I wonder how many actually exist
Hello, this is Pia Carrot. I should mention everything about the forest map *is* speculation, but I am very confident based on how maps between different builds of the prototypes link up that this is what it was meant to be! Thanks so much for the shoutout!
Appreciate your work!
Cheers Pia :) Yeah you told me all about this and sent me maps almost two years ago now. Since then something else came along that made even *more* confident about the map’s placement, although tbh now I can’t remember what it was exactly. Maybe something in a later Gen 2 leak. I actually wrote this video like 3 months ago, and I’ve written about 5 more videos since then, so some of the details that aren’t mentioned in-video are kinda fuzzy in my memory at this point. Anyway, thanks again for the info Pia. Cheers mate :)
I LOVE the commitment to originality of information here! It's become very rare in the Poketuber space, and it's presented fantastically well! Well done, Great video, & Merry Christmas
I'd known the name Porygon was supposed to be a pun on "polygon" for years, but its specific nature of Tajiri including it to go "oh, you want me to make a game with polygons? Here's one!" is absolute gold.
The origin of badges as whips-like martial arts belts certainly explains why Pokemon would pay attention to little metal decorations their trainers earn. They originally had a discipline element to them.
You could say that now it’s more a general reflection of experience at disciplining.
Awoo
@@psychokinrazalon in the manga the badges actually have some sort of mystical power that gives the trainer power towards handling Pokémon and a few other random things
@Safwaan lorge awoo
That’s a great point
I didn't know a lot of these. The Porygon one is fascinating! I kinda thought he was a representation of the graphics at the time (N64 polygons) and how as technology improved graphics got better (Porygon 2) and were hacked to do things they weren't supposed to do (Porygon Z.) The fact that Porygon was designed to be ironic is pretty funny in hindsight!
Game Graphic Glitch Gremlin was the Nerd's own way of saying "Polygons Schmolygons". Nice to see that people even back then are against the ideas of fads and how self-destructive they can be, given THAT involving ugly monkeys.
Not until the (stupid) anime staffs decided to kill the poor creature because of their "false charge" and refusal of taking responsibilities.
"Alder never learned to use a computer."
That's adorable.
But not in real life.
Dont even know this character but first impression was Akuma with his prayer beads
I always thought that Porygon was supposed to represent the future and how humans were on the cusp of making a technological leap. It didn't occur to me that it was supposed to be ironic that a creature made of polygons was in a sprite-based game.
His names technically Polygon since L and R are always switched around.
@@SolidFoxHoundSF Indistinguishable from each other, actually. Not actually switched around.
Same 🤚😓
@@psychokinrazalon oh learry?
@@SolidFoxHoundSF Yep. Bery much.
Please, please continue to get this info translated. As a longtime fan its so hard to find new information on the development of Pokemon as a series, especially information that doesn't shy away from the darker undertones of the concept (and treating it matter of fact instead of making stereotypical youtuber jokes). Keep up the fantastic work!
agreed. like,i LOVE the original concept stuff of pokemon but so much of it has already been talked about 1000 times over that you don't want to just hear the same stuff over and over and over again.
Yeah, it's crazy finding new info after all this.
AFAIK the book is all translated, they're just spreading it out into as many videos that they can to turn their investment into a profit.
@@temporal_paradox - Well this video used info from two magazines and two books. The two magazines are fully translated (well, the Pokémon stuff anyway), and one book has already had all its Pokémon stuff translated (about 130 pages, but a very very small percentage was usable unfortunately). The other book is 600 pages, and we’ve only had about 10% of it translated so far. Btw I’m the guy who writes most of the Pokémon videos on this channel. Anyway, mostly I try to combine info from various translations into one narrative (like the last Pokémon video about Mew’s origin story). And there were a few other videos I wrote between them that have one topic covered, but this video got uploaded first. This video’s basically the leftovers from these translations that didn’t fit into those other, more narrow topics. But we’re always having at least one book or magazine translated at any given time. And videos get written about what’s found in those translations as they come up. So it’s not like we had a few translations done, now we're finished and we’re milking them. We’re gonna keep translating stuff so long as the results of those translations keep turning up good info, and people keep watching them. Cheers mate.
@@DJIVision Ah, thanks for the extensive breakdown. I should clarify I didn't mean that in a negative way, I just naturally assume the translations weren't intended as charity but as an investment for content.
I didn't realize that so much was still untranslated though, that's interesting.
I stand with Tajiri on the decision. Being an RPG has opened up tons of fans to the games that love the mechanics that can only exist in the RPG genre
Like sure creatively it would’ve been interesting to see this game function as a platformer or adventure game or maybe even some wild new genre or a mix we’ve never thought of. But considering that Pokémon is the most popular and profitable franchise in the history of the planet, kind of hard to say it was a bad call. Haha
realistically, there are not many genres that can reach their full potential with the limited controls of the game boy, so I think RPG was the only good choice. A Pokemon platformer or action game would have never been as big because the original game probably would not have been as good.
@@Razsac I wouldn't mind seeing a 3D platform Pokémon game though so far the closest thing we have to that is Poké-Park.
@@PeterGriffin11 probably not for the original Gameboy though lol
If they had gone with a platformer and/or action game, it would've needed a lot of backtracking to go with the ideas of individual habitats and catching 'em all, so it probably would've turned into a Metroidvania.
"Porygon is meant to be ironic."
I'm 30 and have known about Porygon since I was around 8 so yeah this is pretty wild to finally learn.
The dude strikes back
The return of the dude
The dude awakens
The rise of the dude
Tajiri was 100 percent right, with complete respect to miyamoto. I've been playing this series for 20+ years specifically for its rpg mechanics and collectable creatures
I didn't know literally any of these, so y'all did a great job finding rare facts
You need certain badges to make high-level trade Pokémon listen properly. Wonder if that in-game explanation is a remnant of the belt whip concept.
It's the only logical conclusion- the alternative is that Pokémon inherently and inexplicably understand and respect badges.
@@thisplatformsucks Yeah I always thought that was the real explanation, that Pokemon respect the trainer the more badges they have
Concerning the Porygon fact, I noticed a long time ago that "Porygon" was a pun on "polygon," but I never knew the reasoning behind the creation of that Pokémon. And it makes me smile. Here they were telling Tajiri to make 3D polygon games, but little did anyone know, Pokémon would become one of the main reasons for the Game Boy continuing to be popular for another decade.
As to Pokémon being an RPG, I'm glad that it started that way. It was an easily accessible JRPG for children, but it had a lot of depth for those willing to put in the effort to explore and test things. That made it perfect for its early spread in popularity, and gave it staying power.
Now, these days, Pokémon has spinoffs in many genres, ranging from tile-matching puzzle games, Picross, and pinball, to the fighting game Pokken, to a whole series of roguelike dungeon crawlers in the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon series. I'm glad we get to experiment with all these different ways to experience the world, all thanks to that first RPG.
For a few new genres I think it would be cool to see Pokémon take on someday:
- Open-world, "Western" Pokémon RPG. By that I don't mean a Old Western setting, with cowboys and such - though admittedly that could also be cool. I just mean the sort of RPG that is allegedly more popular in the West, the kind where the story is less linear, and player decisions can vastly change the game's story. It would be an interesting change.
- A Pokémon game in the style of Monster Hunter. Either you could be a trainer controlling a Pokémon in real time, or your character itself could be a region starter Pokémon. Every combat encounter would feel difficult and significant. You could be sent out on missions to fight big, powerful Pokémon, eventually needing to fight rampaging Legendary and Mythical Pokémon.
- A Pokémon RTS game. I know those aren't as popular anymore, but I'm still curious what that would look like. (I would also suggest a MOBA Pokémon game, but that's basically what the Pokémon Rumble spinoffs are.)
- Some kind of Pokémon flight simulator/aerial racing game. Whether it would be based on trainers riding flying Pokémon, or just playing as the Pokémon themselves, I think it would feel really cool.
- Does a Pokémon tower defense game already exist? Well, if it doesn't, I also think that would be interesting.
- This may be the biggest pipe dream of all, but it would be so cool if we could ever have some kind of 3D puzzle-platformer in the Pokémon universe, sort of in the style of Legend of Zelda. Rather than getting lots of different weapons and tools to traverse dungeons, you could catch certain predetermined Pokémon at certain locations, and use their skills for the puzzle-solving.
...Yeah. I'm glad that I live at a time where it seems like the Pokémon franchise isn't going anywhere, so maybe someday I'll get to see some of these come to exist.
...it's not a pun. It's the word itself. Japanese R and L people.
Sitting here dumbfounded on the Porygon part, even thinking about how the L and R switch from Japanese is a thing so it really just blew my mind on that one lol
L and R don't "switch", they are one and the same in Japanese.
I never grow tired of the large amounts of Pokémon info that still emerges years after Gen 1. Keep it up, I also found the Alder info interesting too. Makes sense, he does look the part of an elderly person who might be a bit out of touch with the modern world. However, he still has great knowledge of the world.
Using belt whips for pokemon would make more sense explaining why some badges are required to have pokemon above a certain level obey consistently.
but it would be mean.
@@JT5555 but super effective!
the badges are like the scouts
I knew that Porygon was based on polygonal graphics, but Gen 1 also had Pokemon based on Whack-a-Mole, mimes, toxic sludge, and whatever the hell Jinx is supposed to be, so I just figured it was included to give the game more variety.
Even more, most Pokemon are named explicitly in Japanese for what they are...the Legendary Birds being iconic examples: Fire, Thunder, and Freezer. They literally named a Pokemon based on the mythological thunder-bird "Thunder".
So a Polygon-themed Pokemon named "Polygon" is straight-up Gen 1 Japanese naming conventions.
Jynx is most likely based on the Yamanba/Yamauba, a mountain crone with dark skin, blond hair, a prominent mouth and a red dress. She also has control over winter weather.
@@leetri and gangoru make-up
@@bewearstar9462 jynx is not gangoru lol
@@leetri jynx doesn't have dark skin, she's like tangela and cloyster, pokemon that hide their faces. In the stadium games and gb puzzle league shows that she's just the blonde hair trying to be human
I never put any though to a polygon Pokémon being in a 2D game, and the irony behind that. That’s neat.
I'm so glad Pokemon was an RPG. I wouldn't have it any other way. The spin offs are epic in their own right and I love them too. But the core series must remain RPG. The best single player experiences of all time!
I also just learned about Porygon being intentionally ironic from this video, lol. I always knew it was obviously based on a computer-generated 3-D figure from the time period, but the reason behind it being based on that was what I never knew.
As for Pokemon's genre, I can't really say that Tajiri was right or wrong. It is still a very successful RPG, obviously, but I do feel like using different RPG styles at the least like Final Fantasy does would at the least be interesting.
Tbh not sure on that most people aren't a fan on what FF has become these days vs older games
@@theblackgamer8103 Well, even back then, they did still experiment a bit, such as with the Active Time Battle. But at least as far as I've seen, really the only main Final Fantasy game to actually be mostly hated; outside of sequels like 10-2; is 13. Granted, I don't follow the fandom that much, so I'm not completely sure.
I've been playing Pokemon ever since it came out during my late-teens. I never once considered Porygon to be ironic as much as stylistic. Like, if I had been asked why I thought Porygon was in the game, I would have said _"Well, there are other electronic Pokemon, like Magnemite and Electrode, so Porygon is just another Electronic Pokemon, just in style, not type."_ And since CG computer graphics was primitive back then, that was the best design they could give Porygon in-world.
@@Daniel_Coffman Me neither but I only hear mixed feelings on 15 and 7 Remake combined traditional and action so it gets a pass
@@theblackgamer8103 I'm not sure about 15, but I'd heard a lot of people enjoyed 7's remake, myself.
It's cool how a game formed from the developer's nostalgia has itself become nostalgic for so many people. Even as the games lag behind in content and graphics and pretty much everything else nowadays, its core tenants of battling and collecting critters will always have appeal
I'm impressed - I knew some information presented in this video, like beta Gold and Silver (not its entirety but at least the beta Pokémon), but all the main points of each fact are brand new to me. Every PokéTuber who does a "Top 10 facts you didn't know" video all end up being the same collective facts, to a point where I will be impressed to hear ONE new fact. You guys were able to present me with completely new facts, which is honestly mind boggling. Thank you for your hard work
I definitely think it being an rpg made it so accessible to all ages.
The Porygon fact is definitely new to me lol
These games gave me a great love for RPGs as a genre, and honestly shaped a big part of my life. Miyamoto-san was dead wrong on this one.
I mean the more I learn about him the more I think he needs out of the industry or should only be allowed to work on his own new games and more allowed to influence anything else
@@kidthegeek You do realize that without Miyamoto Pokemon wouldnt even exist? People can have differing views and opinions, that's okay. It worked out in the end.
@@Omar_E11 yet his decisions on just about anything are completely out of touch. Just about anything I find out I don't like that has changed in a series is due to him. 10 years ago I worshipped the ground he walked on.
@@kidthegeek People to like to rise Miyamoto to this godlike standard, but not every call has to be a genius one. The truth is people are just unhappy with modern-day Paper Mario and they like to make Miyamoto the punching bag for that, even though he was only involved with Sticker Star and barely anything else. The truth is, Nintendo would be no where without his mind.
Yeah, it's safe to say Pokemon was my childhood gateway into RPGs/JRPGs. Before that I mostly played platformers and action games
The thought of Creatures inc feeling bad that Tajiri presented an idea similar to what they ALREADY had in production. So they just made his instead is adorable and hilarious.
Given that collecting and battling a whole bunch of different monsters is the whole point of Pokemon, I can't imagine what it would be if NOT an RPG. That said, now that the technology has really progressed, I would kill for a spinoff game which played more like Monster Hunter, where you have to put more effort into tracking and actively training Pokemon on an individual basis, instead of being randomly mobbed by low-level trash mons every couple steps, then leaving most of the ones you catch in storage.
That's what Legends seems to be going for on some level
I... Never considered Porygon to be a jab at the then-current generation of consoles.
Clever.
Honestly, I'd never really thought about Porygon's origins until now. I'd just figured somebody at Game Freak liked the idea of a living computer program.
A part of me knew Porygon was suppose to be ironic, being one of my favorite gen 1 I thought it was a jab at the game itself for making electronic animals. So I guess I simultaneously got the joke and missed the joke.
It was more of a jab at chasing trends. As you can tell, it looks derpy compared to the series mascot, Pikachu. Pikachu is an iconic design that can only be made on the game boy, where the most you can get from 3D polygonal gaming was Ballz and Big Rigs. So in a sense Tojiri had the last laugh despite Pokemon Legends: Arceus trying to break away from that and is already showing signs of struggle.
@@Gaia_BentosZX5 "So in a sense Tojiri had the last laugh despite Pokemon Legends: Arceus trying to break away from that and is already showing signs of struggle."
The Super Smash Bros. series, Pokemon Stadium, Pokemon Stadium 2 (JP), Pokemon Stadium GS (Stadium 2 in the west), Pokemon Coliseum, Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness, Pokémon Battle Revolution and Gen 6 onward all say hi. (Not a comprehensive list of course, just going with the biggest titles)
The Porygon one makes so much sense. I had no idea until this video.
I always thought Porygon was suppose to reflect the evolution of computer technology that was going on in the late 90s to early 2000s, didn't know it was suppose to be a sense of irony that a polygon pokemon would exist in a spirte-based game.
Overthinking, overanalyzing, separates the body from the mind
I like Miyamoto and all, but the sheer amount of ego it must take to say "I'm not sure if that was the right decision." about the highest-grossing game franchise by a large margin ever is next level.
He meant in by that time it was decided, not retroactively.
Porygon is legitimately my favorite pokemon and I never knew it was meant as a joke. This just makes porygon more special for me.
Wow even though I played pokemon gen 1 as a kid and I saw all those sprites of trainers with whips, it never occurred to me that they might be using the whips on their pokemon! I guess I just thought it was like... part of their aesthetic or whatever
The story about Alder implies the six pokeball limit is just something that people do because they can't be bothered with carrying more pokeballs
Well, that and probably battling rules, like how the person that looses a battle has to give money to the winner, nobody is there to enforce that it happens but trainers do it anyways.
it would be funny to have an evil organization on some future gen that uses 8 or 9 pokemons in a single battle, as if they are breaking the rules since they dont care.
If I remeber correctly, in the manga Oak mentions that the League defined 6 as enough to make a team, plus is harder to care for and raise more at once
When people catch Pokemon after they have a full party, the pokeball looks like it gets locked and can't be used and apparently, the Pokedex can be used as a sort of "portable PC" to change your current party with the Pokemon you have with you.
Also, another apparent assumption is that...well, training Pokemon is extremely hard in their world. We don't notice because it's extremely simplified for the sake of gameplay but the reason why many trainers give up their own journey can be that taking care of six creatures with widely different needs and natures can be too much for a single person. So Alder carrying several pokeballs really cements him as a certified Pokemon Master because he CAN take care of that many Pokemon on his own without stuffing them on a PC.
Ironically, Legends Arceus is now showing us what Pokemon would be like if it wasn't a traditional RPG.
Hmmm mahbe action rpg? You still create a character and name them and choose.appearance. You play as a character going through a journey. Still seems pretty rpg to me.
Hmmm mahbe action rpg? You still create a character and name them and choose.appearance. You play as a character going through a journey. Still seems pretty rpg to me.
@@david-jonballinger6638 ARPG. Not RPG. Not exactly the same. Though LA is a mix of both.
Hmmm mahbe action rpg? You still create a character and name them and choose appearance. You play as a character going through a journey. Still seems pretty rpg to me
Hmmm mahbe action rpg? You still create a character and name them and choose appearance. You play as a character going through a journey. Still seems pretty rpg to me
I'll be honest, I didn't know the irony of Porygon and I've been playing since the original red and blue (ironically got red version on christmas eve of 1998, and as I'm writing this, its christmas eve). I also think Pokemon only works as an RPG. Sure there are fun spin-offs, but the strategy, adventuring, collecting and trading all work around the RPG center.
The whole reason I loved Pokémon as a kid was because it’s an rpg game. I’m so glad they kept it an rpg game
this is the only channel i can trust when they tell me they can actually give me cool pokemon facts i did not know
Pretty neat analysis & fact video! Love the work you do to find all this new info! Thanks so much for uploading!
Personally, I like Pokemon as an RPG. It gives reason to have lots of lore & dialogue, & to have a multiple Pokemon party that battle together with a HUGE variety of abilities!
Porygon's my favorite Pokémon, but I had no idea that it was meant to be ironic. You learn something new everyday, really good job with this video!
The problem I have with Pokémon is the same broken turn-based strategy really really gets boring.... to me that's the only thing that holding it back
Translating new info that we would have never known is prob the best thing you have done since you started this channel. Pls keep it up
I honestly didnt think it was ironic as a kid. I was all "haha weird janky birdie". Also, Im so glad they dropped the whips for more adorable badges. I cant imagine having to whip my digital data babies in a whipping minigame.
This was great, I really appreciate the effort you all put in to translate old magazines to being us this really interesting info!
What I keep learning from your videos is that Miyamoto is perhaps somewhat overrated as a developer. Many times he has the wrong idea that does sometimes make it into the game, like Twilight Princess's elongated tutorial section in Ordon Village.
Critics have been aware of that for years but they get silenced by people that place Miyamoto on a pedestal. He is a great developer in the 80s but he still represents a quirk of old Japanese business that dislikes taking miniscule risks.
Not necessarily. Part of what defines an inventor or artistic creative is that they often have bad ideas. It is figuring out which ideas are good, or which ideas, even if bad on their own, become good ideas when combined with the right additional idea, that is key.
Thomas Edison pointed out it took him over 1,000 attempts to come up with a working and economic carbon-filament based incandescent light bulb, which became the standard for indoors lighting for over 100 years.
His good ideas are still present, they just make less interesting trivia
Rarely is someone a perfect mastermind who never makes any wrong calls. Miyamoto is included in that, being a human, so I don't see why everyone raises him up to that standard. Just because he meddled into one Paper Mario game doesn't mean he's a boogeyman ruining every game he touches... No Miyamoto, no Nintendo.
@@GreyWolfLeaderTW Thomas Edison also “borrowed” most of his work so…
"Belts" would make sense because "gyms" are basically dojos; the "gym leaders" are testing the trainers according to their skill level, not going all out.
They're all masters to some degree and employees of the Pokemon League, which is essentially the martial arts federation of Pokemon.
Which also explains why they use specific types, instead of a balanced team; to also test trainers on their knowledge of type match-ups.
Think about that; Brock could have probably sent out a level 60 Golem at any time and sent you back home crying but that wasn't his job, he tested you as a trainer taking a test for your first "badge".
I believe the miniseries Pokemon Origins actually confirms that. I would love to see it in the games.
weirdest part about alder having more than six pokeballs on him at a time is that the 6 max rule isn't some kind of pokemon world law or pokemon training rule: you CAN have more than six,it's just that most people don't because that's what the PC is for.
Love the concept of Alder not knowing how to use a computer. There’s probably lots of trainers carrying around more than 6 Pokémon!
Thank you @DYKG for going through the trouble of not only consistently uploading new videos, but having pieces of gaming history translated. Cheers guys! Have a great New Year!
I gotta admit the story behind porygon is super clever, also I love that he made basically the first pokemon hacks
The RPG genre was perfect for pokemon back in the day because the hardware couldn't handle much more. The issue with it now is the fact that hardware evolved and pokemon (ironically) didn't. We're only just now getting a game like Legends Arceus, which I know a lot of children, myself included, had envisioned as the true essence of pokemon even back in gen 1. Pokemon should be a game where you can truly wander around and come upon a pokemon in their natural habitat, then befriend and train it until it's the strongest around.
It's looking like Legends Arceus is getting pretty close to the real essence of what pokemon is. Gen 1 did the best it could to capture that essence with gameboy hardware, but it was limited to following a route's set path, allowing all pokemon that live on that route to be found in the same small patch of grass, and condensing training into using a few moves over and over until you level up. That was fine, but the GBA could do more, and might have been best to expand out of the limitations that were forced upon the series by the original gameboy. The DS, 3DS, and now the Switch have given it even more power to move past those limitations, but we've still been given games that feature the same shackles that have long since been broken for other games.
Sword and Shield still feel like gameboy games despite their much stronger hardware - they still feature mostly just linear corridors instead of real exploration, patches of grass bursting with random pokemon instead of real individual habitats, and training that can turn a wild pokemon into a champion-level threat in a matter of hours. These things are not the real essence of pokemon, they are what pokemon had to settle for back in 1996, and it's well past time for us to show its true potential. The RPG genre was great for pokemon on the gameboy because it was the best way to condense a whole adventure into a few megabytes of data, but we've got dozens of gigabytes to work with now, and it's time to use them to show what a real adventure looks like.
"Is Miyamoto thinking a game shouldn't an RPG a bad thing?"
"Depends on the context."
"Pokémon? Maybe."
"Paper Mario? *_FUCK YES IT IS!_*
I don't mind Pokemon being an RPG. Pokemon has been a huge part of my life and is responsible for why I love RPGs. What I DON'T like is how Pokemon in recent years has continued to fall flat in terms of game design compared to monster collecting genre RPGs both older and newer with games like Shin Megami Tensei, Dragon Quest Monsters, Digimon and ESPECIALLY Yo-Kai Watch making modern Pokemon look like a joke.
That said, I still love it in spite of all its faults as an RPG.
Ok so being a boomer with technology makes you OP in Pokemon huh
The thing about the suicide forest IS pretty creepy, though it DOES help to explain why Misdreavus, a new Johto Pokémon, can only be found in the Kanto part of the game.
The Pokemon franchise has spawned some interesting spinoffs over the years, one of which (Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky) is a strong contender for my favorite game in the franchise. But I think the gameplay loop they chose for the core series was likely the best choice they could have made at the time, as it played very nice with what the Game Boy was capable of doing. I think any other potential genre would have been very likely to have suffered from the Game Boy's limitations, while the gameplay we ended up with works well for a portable console, and in fact I think I prefer it being on a portable system - Pokemon games are great to take on the go because of how seamlessly you can switch between playing and paying attention to your surroundings as the need arises. There's a lot more they can do with the franchise with today's technology, but if the earlier games weren't as successful, Pokemon may not still be with us today, and I think choosing a simple gameplay loop (including the specifics of the battle system) that the SNES or N64 couldn't have done better (not counting graphics) likely played an important role in making it able to be successful so late into the Game Boy's life cycle.
I never even thought about Porygon that way, even though I could definitely see the link between it and its name. Porygon has just always been one of those Pokémon I'd look at, go "Oh hey, I know that one" and then move on.
I definitely didn't realize the irony of Porygon til watching this video. I just thought it was a cool idea that there was an artificial Pokémon made with computers in-universe. Full respect to Satoshi Tajiri for his keen sense of subtle humor. Merry Christmas!
I actually like playing Pokemon mainly for catching them and not for the RPG aspect of it. I enjoyed it for the same reason as I enjoyed Mario 64, it is a good collectaton. After all, Pokemon was primarily advertised as a collectaton game over an RPG with its famous slogan, gotta catch'em all. But over the years, late entry focused more on its RPG aspect of it, then for, I lost some interest the series mainline because of it. Pokemon Go, Let's Go & Snap are the recent Pokemon games that I prefer more over the mainline, because they are more focused on the collectaton. So personality, I think Miyamoto was on to something with his claim.
I actually didn't know any of these, great job guys!
Don't really go searching for hidden meanings in these games. I didn't even make that "Ruins of Alph" was Alphabet even with the Unown being an obvious hint until 20 years or so after. So Porygon's story is something new to me.
I always thought that Porygon was added just for the lore of humans researching pokemon
I guess elements from Toto could have made it into Creatures, Inc.'s actually released monster collecting game Chee-Chai Alien (2001) but with the insects changed to aliens. The 'insect cage' is similar to the main screen in that game but the Game Boy Color's infrared is used to grab the aliens from space. Curiously there are also capsules used to store Chaliens in that game (and Pokémon was Capsule Monsters), and the scents, dark matter are collected with vials.
I am always amazed by the facts y’all dig up and the amount of effort y’all put into the digging
Pokémon would definitely not be the cultural phenomenon it has become if it weren't an RPG IMO. The RPG aspects are what makes it so replayable and allowed it to become a game people played competitively, thus extending its life ten fold IMO
I wasn't sure about Porygon being an artificial mon based off of low-poly 3D models, but now I appreciate our little virtual-duck son even more than I did. Same goes for their evolutions, too!
I would like to see a pokemon fighting game where you can play as the complete list of at least the first two gens that would be awesome
Merry Christmas guys!! Really good video I didn’t know about the Porygon and the forest ones
Miyamoto is out of his mind...as usual
36 year old, been playing off and on since Gen 1, that Porygon fact is kinda mindblowing.
Okay as a Porygon Fan the reason why it exists is so hilarious lol but I do appreciate that even tho it was supposed to be a humorous reason they did give it a fair amount of interesting lore.
This makes Porygon even cooler.
I love the Alder bit, he's my favorite champion and its cool to learn more about him
So the funny thing about the Porygon fact is that it made me realize why he’s named what he is. He’s all Polygons, and in Japanese they don’t have an L sound in their alphabet and so they most commonly replace an L sound with an R sound. Porygon’s name is literally just how someone from Japan would say the word Polygon. Porygon
this video is relevant because I've been replaying the first 5 gens of pokemon lately
(in no particular order because I did Emerald first and now I'm doing Red)
About the Porygon being an irony... I certainly have failed to understand the irony. Instead, I understood it as a download-thingy Pokémon
I got the whole Porygon/polygon connection right away, but I never realized that it was meant to be ironic. I honestly just believed the game's lore, that it was an artificial Pokémon, and that the design was just an interesting idea. I mean, if they could have a floating eyeball with magnets and a screw attached, why not a polygonal... duck thing? XD
It wouldn't be a DYKG video without making us question Shigeru Miyamoto's entire career.
I feel like that Manscaped ad would have been better placed after the comment about Alder going around with all his balls jangling out.
Haha yeah, it would have.
Honestly a little surprised they skipped out on it.
@@XenonOdyssey22 As the editor, that was just how it was given to me. Maybe the sponsor wanted it in a specific place?
8:22 WHAT?! Porygon was supposed to be ironic?! And here I am, a 28 year old, 21 year vet of the franchise, and savy in tech, and had no idea. Damn Taijiri is good
I've never noticed Porygon's irony, however X and Y came out when I was 10 so 3d pokémon aren't that odd for me
9:34 Ironically, Pokémon games still continue to be rushed during their development.
Aside from the fact about trainers originally being able to whip their Pokémon all this other stuff is new to me...well done.
Well. Today I learned Porygon is a play on polygon. How the hell have I missed that all these years...?