287: Can't Catch 'em All

[Mister Benoit]

I had caught them all Bar Mew in my blue version by spring 99, then I went to a track and field meet at another school and while I was doing an event someone went in my bag and stole my GBC, PKMN Blue and Zelda Links Awakening. I spent the rest of the day sobbing and did not compete in any other events.

Pokemon still sells me on every iteration of the gameboy but i've never caught them all again. I'd rather just get an incredibly efficient team for PVP.

 

[Optimystic]

Funk, thank you for so succinctly summarizing my biggest problem with the series.

According to Wikipedia, B&W will bring the total to a freaking ridiculous 649 'mons. Can someone please explain the point of this to me? I know Nintendo is no stranger to milking their franchises down to the last grain of flavorless sand, but this goes beyond a cash grab; they genuinely don't want people to complete their damn game. And when they force you to either cheat or be Japanese to succeed at this insurmountable goal, what are they teaching their players? "Skill doesn't matter as much as luck of birth or ability to beat the system?" That's one hell of an aesop.

 

[Andronicus]

I didn't exactly "catch" 'em all, per se, but I did manage to fully complete my Silver pokedex back in the day by trading rare pokemon back and forth between friends, including Celebi. Sure, I didn't actually own them, but that was one of the most satisfying games I ever completed, and I do consider it completed. Good times.

 

[Monadnock]

Aaaaah, Pokemon, my eternal favourite. I've never caught them all, but I don't play the game with that goal in mind anymore. The fact that some pokemon are limited to events always struck me as cruel (you know in the original Japanese versions you got Mew after catching all the regular ones? No event required). These days they hand out pokemon over the Wi-Fi system so if you can get your game to talk to the internet, it's much easier.

Though if you have a security-minded setup, you're pretty much screwed. I can't get online with my game anymore without turning the security off. My DSi can... just the Pokemon game cartridges can't. And my Wi-Fi USB connector isn't compatible with Windows 7. I'm hoping Black and White are updated.

 

[True Nero]

oh dear lord... how many hours, no, DAYS did i waste trying to find someone that happened to actually be as far as i was in Red. i was a pokemon fanatic and i had beaten it before everyone else. i was actually lucky to find a class mate that was kind enough (and didn't care enough) to actually give me the other two starters. and that was a big help, but by the time i actually caught them all Mew was introduced and i BEGGED my parents to take me to the events. they did but the next games already came out...

..slow downward spiral

 

[Zenode]

I heard John Funk likes Mudkips.

really....REALLY

OT: I caught everything in the Sapphire and Ruby bar the event ones...I couldn't take it to myself to do something like that to get everything in game, just takes the fun away.

 

[rokkolpo]

I caught mew, due to a glitch instead of hacking.
It was a bit of a YAY-buster since Mew was lvl 26. (or lower)
It wasn't a challenge, I put it to sleep, threw a great ball and I got it.

I was still happy, but I wanted it to be harder.

Kanghaskhan was my true bane, goddamn you safaRi zone GODDAMN HYOUUUU!

 

[CharrHearted]

One time I dropped my GBA and for some reason when turning on my Emerald I had all the pokemon. It was weird...

 

[Gxas]

A very good read, Funk. Thanks for that. You make a good point in the fact that a lot of the collecting relied upon the promotions which rarely showed up in America. I still don't think I've seen a legitimate Shaymin. Hard to catch something when you don't even release it in the first place.

 

[Sarah Frazier]

I'd given up playing Pokemon after Ruby/Emerald because I noticed a trend... A tedious maze-like system to get anywhere while fighting every step of the way until you find the magical means of skipping over. The next annoying fact was, as this thread is about, how the only way to actually get each and every 'mon was to trade for it and I had no friends who cared about the game enough when there was a more exciting TV show about it. It was a major buzzkill when I was told every single time that my Pokedex was barely started and how I must not be a real trainer if I haven't been able to get more recorded. After a while I just stopped caring and didn't even try to level up the stored 'mons to evolve them when I'm likely to find their evolved forms anyways later on. Unless they needed some special item or trading to evolve. Then I was just screwed.

 

[Assassin Xaero]

I never tried to catch them all. My sister did once, on Red, except for Mew, and I always just went for the ones I liked. It is a bit insane now with some where you have to trade them multiple times while having them hold items, especially when you don't have friends.

 

[John Funk]

Funk, thank you for so succinctly summarizing my biggest problem with the series.

According to Wikipedia, B&W will bring the total to a freaking ridiculous 649 'mons. Can someone please explain the point of this to me? I know Nintendo is no stranger to milking their franchises down to the last grain of flavorless sand, but this goes beyond a cash grab; they genuinely don't want people to complete their damn game. And when they force you to either cheat or be Japanese to succeed at this insurmountable goal, what are they teaching their players? "Skill doesn't matter as much as luck of birth or ability to beat the system?" That's one hell of an aesop.

Well, I don't think it's actually that much of a problem because it's not supposed to be the point any more. Nintendo hasn't used "Gotta Catch 'em All" in official marketing for at least two generations.

But as I touched on in the article, I'm also not sure it's inherently a bad thing. The fun isn't in *having* them, it's in trying to collect them.

 

[Sonicron]

Aside from Mew, I managed to "catch 'em all" in Gen I, due to trading around with my brother and some friends at school.
It got harder with Gen II, but it was still doable.

Then Gen III came along, and with the loss of backwards compatibility and the resulting hoops you had to jump through to fill the Pokédex came a sense of futility and sadness, and a quiet, impotent ire at the convoluted piece of shit my earlier childhood enjoyment had transformed into.

I've long since moved on, but the way you wrote this article brought the sadness back to the surface. I want the old days back.

 

[Buizel91]

i have 357 Pokemon in soul silver, no cheating, although some Pokemon i got from the Wifi thing in Goldenrod maybe hacked =\

358 once i trade this Carnivine from Platinum over to SS =D

It's not impossible, just get Platinum (pearl or diamond) and HG or SS, then it becomes easier.

Personally i find it an achievement when that number goes up =D

EDIT: hello where did this post come from? weird

Anyway ignore this post, new one on page 4 XD

 

[Crimson_Dragoon]

And people wonder why I used a gameshark to get Mew.

 

[Optimystic]

Well, I don't think it's actually that much of a problem because it's not supposed to be the point any more. Nintendo hasn't used "Gotta Catch 'em All" in official marketing for at least two generations.

That smacks to me of KFC downplaying the word "Chicken" from their marketing due to all the phosphates and preservatives, or WoW dropping the "RP" from "MMORPG" when describing itself. In other words, they're addressing a perceived problem not through improved design, but by lowering our expectations of the product.

But as I touched on in the article, I'm also not sure it's inherently a bad thing. The fun isn't in *having* them, it's in trying to collect them.

Perhaps, but that still presents the problem of no payoff. The presence of the Pokedex in every iteration of the series, complete with unique blurbs and glaringly empty slots, is bait for the compulsive. (And I'd like to meet a pokemon fan that isn't at least a little bit compulsive.)

Also, I can't honestly think of any reason you would need 649 pokemon. With only 17 types, there's a maximum of 289 combinations, and even that's counting duplicates (like Flying/Bug and Bug/Flying.) It just boggles. Is there really that much difference between, say, a Charmander and a Charmeleon besides stats? Or the Porygons?

 

[JWRosser]

It should be "Gotta catch 'em all (if you're Japanese)".

Though personally I never tried to catch all of them. I think if I did that, I would instantly become bored and grow to hate the games. I mean, how dull must it be to just catch them all...?

 

[John Funk]

Well, I don't think it's actually that much of a problem because it's not supposed to be the point any more. Nintendo hasn't used "Gotta Catch 'em All" in official marketing for at least two generations.

That smacks to me of KFC downplaying the word "Chicken" from their marketing due to all the phosphates and preservatives, or WoW dropping the "RP" from "MMORPG" when describing itself. In other words, they're addressing a perceived problem not through improved design, but by lowering our expectations of the product.

But as I touched on in the article, I'm also not sure it's inherently a bad thing. The fun isn't in *having* them, it's in trying to collect them.

Perhaps, but that still presents the problem of no payoff. The presence of the Pokedex in every iteration of the series, complete with unique blurbs and glaringly empty slots, is bait for the compulsive. (And I'd like to meet a pokemon fan that isn't at least a little bit compulsive.)

Also, I can't honestly think of any reason you would need 649 pokemon. With only 17 types, there's a maximum of 289 combinations, and even that's counting duplicates (like Flying/Bug and Bug/Flying.) It just boggles. Is there really that much difference between, say, a Charmander and a Charmeleon besides stats? Or the Porygons?

I see it more as Nintendo acknowledging that this is an impossible goal and that it pretty much IS impossible to catch 'em all. It isn't a problem in design; it's the intent of the design.

I disagree that there's no payoff. As I said in the article, I remember when kids would download the exclusive event pokemon du jour and looked ecstatic. The payoff is in tracking down that one rare that you've been waiting for, not the rare and its friends.

At this point, you introduce new monsters because that's what the franchise does. You don't start a new generation without introducing a new cast of characters; some of which are meant to replace others and some of which aren't. I'm actually pretty pleased with B/W just because they're initially going ALL new cast - you won't be able to catch any of the old ones in the game (at first).

 

[BlueHighwind]

I tried my hardest a full years ago to catch them all. Spent an entire summer catching all 386 or whatever they had back then. Spent like 100 dollars altogether on like six different versions of Pokemon GBA games. The highest I got up to was 374, because the last nine were just impossible to find, it was hopeless. You actually needed to cheat to get them (since all the events were over).

To this very day, I have never owned a Celebi... EVER.