Always better, always faster, always more addicting

If you’ve been following Golgotron for a while now, you know I love games that are relatively mundane, but eternally playable (I wrote about Persona 3 being awesome because of it). Strangely, I’m not a huge fan of MMOs though. Games that are similar to MMOs, but without the massive multiplayer, however, are some of my favorite titles. Pokemon Platinum has been my current time waster lately (you know, because it’s mundane and extremely playable). After playing through it and putting it down a year ago, I haven’t thought about the series aside from anticipating Heart Gold and Soul Silver (coming out in three weeks). But, I had nothing else to play and figuring there were some legendary Pokemon left so I picked it up planning to kill a day getting everything ready to trade-over into the next game. Then I figured I’d play Pokemon LeafGreen on GBA to prepare for the next game. Then I purchased Pokemon Emerald to prepare for the next game…

Turns out those Pocket monsters has an extreme hold on me.

One of the ways Pokemon has become one of my favorite game franchises is variety. There are many different things to do in the game. Every generation of the franchise, the good people at Game Freak adds something new to keep players playing. And each addition merely tightens its grip on my attention span. Let’s look at this metamorphosis:

Generation 1 (Red/Blue/Yellow): Players battled and caught ‘em all. That’s really about it at this point. It’s not much, but people loved it and made the Gameboy cool almost a decade after it was released.

Generation 2 (Gold/Silver/Crystal): Pokemon can have sex now! Gen 2 introduced breeding into the game. Players can breed the pokemon they want to use. This generation also added new ways to evolve and other battle dynamics (holdable items, happiness evolutions, an active calendar).

Generation 3 (Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald/FireRed/LeafGreen): Generation 3 added contests. Pokemon can compete in front of a panel of judges for ribbons. It’s a Pokemon fashion show. It’s also proof that the good people at Game Freak don’t have flawless ideas.

Generation 4 (Diamond/Pearl/Platinum/Heart Gold/ Soul Silver): This generation probably did the worst thing to mundane productivity. In 2007, Pokemon added online play. With online battles, a new drive inspired players to want to be the very best (like no one ever was). This generation also added new depth to the breeding system. Now, players can easily breed and exploit the game and raise crazy-strong pokemon. Players pretty much discovered Pokemon steroids.

These additions over the twelve years have created a vivid and diverse game-space. There’s enough to do that, if you’re tired of one thing, players can easily do another. Most other games do this. World of Warcraft has professions, battlegrounds, and other classes. Team Fortress 2 has stats to build with its wonderfully colorful cast. Pokemon, however, is portable.

With a diverse game, portability makes a huge difference.

Look at other successful portable games. Tetris, for example, is a staple on every portable console, and is an extraordinary game. The game, features falling blocks exclusively. Tetris DS added other game modes which would kill my argument, but Tetris DS was made by Nintendo; the company I’m praising in this article.

Tetris is a great game, and its forward-style gameplay works well on a portable system. Handheld games are supposed to be easy to chew. If it takes more than five minutes to figure out, odds are your game isn’t great because the player may have already gotten of the bus.

Pokemon, with it’s gradual additions, has created a massive portable game; and it very well may be the only game to do so.