Pokemon Future: The Unauthorized Guide

by Hank Schlesinger

Overview

Are you a Poké-maniac?
If so, you'll need to read on about all the cool new developments in the world of Pokémon! Learn from today's finest Pokémon masters—kids just like you—how to win at the new versions of this awesome game of monsters, and discover all the exciting new Pokémon products and off-shoots.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250115898
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	03/15/2016
Sold by:	Macmillan
Format:	eBook
Pages:	256
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Hank Schlesinger is the author of many books, including Digimon Power, How to Become a Pokemon Master, and How to Win at Nintendo 64 Games, Vol. 2.
Hank Schlesinger is the author of many books, including Digimon Power, How to Become a Pokemon Master, and How to Win at Nintendo 64 Games, Vol. 2.

Read an Excerpt

Pokémon Future

The Unauthorized Guide

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By Hank Schlesinger

St. Martin's Press

Copyright © 2001 Hank Schlesinger
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-250-11589-8

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CHAPTER 1

pokémon future?

"I'm bigger, so I'm more of a fan now. The games are a lot better. I'll be a fan until it stops."

— Adin

The big question is: Can I even write a book about the future?

Of course I can't.

So why is the book called Pokémon Future? I think the answer to that is pretty easy. I think that in a lot of ways Pokémon is the future. When Pokémon first came out it proved a lot of things about video games.

For one thing, it proved that the Game Boy was still a good handheld player. Remember, the Game Boy was already "old" when Pokémon came out. It didn't have a lot of fancy graphics and it didn't have a lot of memory. What it had was Pokémon. All across the country, kids dug out their unused Game Boys from the bottoms of dresser drawers and from under beds. They changed the batteries and plugged in a Pokémon cart and bingo! — bango! — presto! — Game Boy became a huge success again.

Another thing that Pokémon proved is that kids aren't as dumb as a lot of adults may think. Pokémon is a good game, and kids saw that instantly. Of course, there were the television show, trading cards, movies and magazines about Pokémon — but all of that doesn't matter a tiny bit if the game stinks. If the video game stinks, then kids won't play it. That's a fact.

And lastly, Pokémon proved that you don't need a lot of blood and guts and skull-juggling for kids to like a video game. Pokémon did something that no other video game had done before. It combined a Role Playing Game (RPG) with a strategy combat game and, maybe best of all, virtual collecting. Plus, it did it all on the humble Game Boy.

So what exactly is the future of Pokémon?

"I'm still a big fan. I think it's just because I got to play Silver and I think it's cool because there are all these new Pokémon."

— Roger

This is what I think the future is going to be for Pokémon. I think that yes, there will be more Pokémon games. And probably more TV shows and movies. Eventually, and this is kind of sad, Pokémon will fade away. All video games lose their popularity after a while. That's a fact. However — and this is the most important part — Pokémon taught everyone a lot. It taught the game manufacturers that kids would play really, really good games. The first Pokémon games took a lot of time to make — seven years — but it was worth it! They are great games. Hopefully the video game manufacturers, like Nintendo, will create more Pokémon-quality games with lots of strategy and challenges involved now that they found out kids will play them.

And I think that kids learned how good a video game will be. After playing Pokémon, bad video games seem really awful. I would bet that there are kids out there now — maybe even reading this book! — who want to grow up to design video games like Pokémon. And, probably, some of them will grow up to design games.

So, even after Pokémon fades from sight, it's still going to be around, one way or another ...

"I still haven't decided my favorite between Lugia and Charizard. My very first favorite, I guess, was Charizard. Before that I don't even think I had a favorite."

— Will

"My two favorite Pokémon are still Mew and Squirtle. I like Mew because he is rare and powerful and I like Squirtle because he is a Water-type Pokémon."

— Tim

what pokémon has proved to the world!

I was sitting around one day in my Pokémon pajamas with my feet cozy in my Charmander slippers when I heard "Pika! Pika! Pika!" To a normal person, this would be a little scary — especially since I wasn't playing Pokémon at the time. However, I immediately recognized the sound as that of my Pikachu phone ringing ... "Pika! Pika! Pika!"

When I answered the phone, it was a concerned parent asking me about Pokémon.

"I'm a concerned parent and what's all this Pokémon stuff, anyway?" the parent said. "You wrote a book about it, so you should know."

"It's actually a totally harmless popular cultural phenomenon based on a variety of disparate though interrelated social and cultural childhood variables distributed and reinforced through a variety of popular entertainment and communication media," I said. "There's also the shared social aspect vis-a-vis bonding through a collective pool of knowledge regarding the game itself."

Feeling pretty good about myself, I straightened the collar on my jammies and went back to doing nothing. I had no idea what I'd said to the concerned parent, but thought I might have a bowl of Pokémon cereal and play with some action figures.

That's what us big-time important writers do all day.

Anyway, the concerned parent did get me thinking. It got me thinking about what is all this Pokémon stuff, anyway? So instead of playing with action figures, I sat down and made up this list. I call it: What Pokémon Proved To The World! (Pretty good title, huh?)

A) KIDS AREN'T STUPID: Pokémon proved that kids all over the world aren't as stupid as they sometimes act. This is, personally, a comforting thought to me, since one of these kids playing Pokémon today might one day be performing surgery on me ... Oh boy, I hope the kid at least collected most of the Pokémon.

More importantly, it proved that kids had enough brains to recognize a high-quality game when they played it. A great many kids played the game through to their conclusion or found parts of the game — like trading Pokémon — that they really enjoyed.

B) NO FANCY-PANTS GRAPHICS: It proved that you don't need a whole lot of fancy-pants graphics to be a great game and that a totally original and well-designed game will be played by kids. Remember, Game Boy was ancient news when Pokémon came out. I know for a fact that a lot — A LOT! — of Game Boys were rescued from the bottoms of dresser drawers and under beds to go back into action playing Pokémon.

And what made these kids pull out the old Game Boy consoles? It was a video game that was unlike anything anyone had seen before. It was so well-designed and thought out that kids couldn't help but be attracted to it.

C) NO BLOOD, GUTS OR GUNS: I've said this before and I'll say it again: Pokémon is a great game because there is no real violence in it. It's proven, once and for all, that great video games don't have to be violent.

D) GIRLS PLAY VIDEO GAMES: For a long time people thought that girls were not interested in video games. You never saw them playing video games very much. This is stupid, but true. A lot of people thought that only boys liked video games. Pokémon proved that girls will play video games if there is a video game worth playing.

E) LITTLE KIDS CAN PLAY, TOO: It proved that little kids really want to play video games and will play if there are games worth playing that are easy enough. Pokémon was good for this, because even if the little kid didn't get very far in the game, he or she could still have fun trading and collecting.

pokémon dead? don't count on it!

So how cool is this? When Nintendo released the Gold and Silver versions in October of 2000, the games sold more than 1,400,000 copies of the two versions in one week! We're talking about a lot of carts there. It's actually a new record!

Funny, but it seems like only yesterday that the original Blue and Red versions were introduced. Actually, it was in September of 1998. And since then, millions and millions of kids have bought them.

"My favorite character was always Squirtle because he's cute. I've got a little holographic sticker of him with a beach ball, wearing sunglasses and sticking his tongue out in a happy sort of way. Pikachu was too annoying, too famous. Enough, pick someone new. Like some of the birds. I also like Alakazam."

— Adam

"So far I think Gold is my favorite. It's the most fun. It's different Pokémon, different strategies, different towns. It's just different because Yellow, Red and Blue are practically all the same. And it's fun because it's a harder game than the other ones."

— Colin

"My favorite game is Pokémon Pinball. It's the most fast-moving game of them all. I never got bored. You never had to walk down one single path for like an hour and a half. Your hands are always shaking. A lot of fun."

— Adam

"I caught Mew at a giveaway with my friend at a mall in New Jersey. Getting Mew in a giveaway is the only way to get him without Gameshark. Mew can learn any HM or TM and he is #151. Here's a tip for lucky trainers who have Mew: You should teach Mew Hyper Beam (TM15), Fly (HM02), Psychic (TM29), and Tri Attack (TM49)."

— Tim

a note to parents

Now that video games have come to the forefront of what is sometimes a very loud public debate, far more parents are monitoring what types of video games their kids play. This is a good thing. For years, the ESRB rating system somehow slipped beneath the radar of many parents. In part, this was due to how parents defined video games. For many parents, video games meant old-fashioned primitive graphics and wholesome, whimsical themes. Pac-Man and Space Invaders come to mind as falling into that particular category.

These parents were shocked to discover the level of violence included in many of the games their children played. The level of violence, combined with developments in technology that rendered realistic images, made the games wholly unacceptable.

However, now that the problem is out in the open, some parents still remain confused or ignorant about the current games. Extremely violent games make up only a small — though noisy — portion of the total number of video games currently on the market. Though, Nintendo, in particular, remains one of the few major video game manufacturers with a large and growing catalogue of wholesome games generally suitable for pre-teens.

With that said, video games, like movies and television and music, should fit into your own, predetermined household standards.

Like it or not, video games are just one of a kid's many entertainment options available today, and this is not going to change any time soon. And, like movies, music and television, their content covers a vast area that ranges from the educational to the distasteful.

Following is a list of five simple things parents can do to monitor and control the games their children play.

A) LEARN THE RATINGS: The Electronic Software Rating Board (ESRB) ratings are accurate and fair. Complete descriptors are included on every video game box for sale in the U.S. Some imported games do not include ESRB ratings and should be previewed prior to letting a child play.

B) SET HOUSEHOLD STANDARDS: Every household has its own standard on what is "acceptable" entertainment. The ESRB ratings, like movie ratings, do have some latitude. While E for Everyone ratings are usually a safe bet, the T for Teen rating can prove particularly troublesome in judging appropriate content. In particular, many shooting and action games rated T may have unacceptable levels of violence. It is safe to say that any game containing a combat or gun theme should be previewed by a parent beforehand.

C) WORK WITH (AND NOT AGAINST) LOCAL RETAILERS: Only recently have retailers themselves become aware of the importance of the ESRB ratings. In the past, many retailers and rental outlets that would not dream of renting an R-rated movie to a pre-teen consistently rented T and M-rated video games to children. This is changing in part because of the publicity the issue of violence in video games has received.

Independent local retailers are usually open to working with parent groups, such as the PTA and other community organizations. The solution might be as simple as alerting and schooling check-out personnel on the ESRB rating system so that they don't rent inappropriate games to kids. Another, more ambitious, solution that has worked in some areas is repositioning appropriate E-rated videos close to the kids' film section to create a "Kids Corner" within the store.

D) KNOW THE GAMES: Reading reviews readily available on the Internet, reviewing descriptions of the games on the box at the retail outlet, and sharing information with other parents, are all good places to start. However, there is no substitute for experience. Parents should make an effort to play the games that their kids play or want to play. This is the most effective way to ensure that the games fall within household standards. If possible, parents should even play along with their kids once the games have been approved. Competing with your child offers an interaction you can't get from watching a movie or television show together. And if the new games leave the parent a little befuddled, there are currently dozens of "classic" video game titles available on the market that can be assured of recalling a certain nostalgia for the parent.

E) TALK TO OTHER PARENTS: Communication between other parents can help you avoid inappropriate games in the marketplace. And lines of communication, when done diplomatically, can also help keep your child away from games that don't fit within the standards you set at home. Most reasonable parents will respect another parent's standards in regard to video game content.

the ESRB ratings

The majority of reputable video game manufacturers submit their games for an ESRB rating. Each video game box should include two types of information to describe the game's content. The first is a Rating Symbol that appears on the front of the box in a small square. The second is what's called a Content Descriptor, which describes the content of the game in a few words. Be sure to review both Symbol and Content Descriptor for all game purchases and rentals.

EC: This means Early Childhood. Not only is a game that is rated EC free of objectionable material, but the gameplay is also easy enough for younger children.

K-A: stands for Kids to Adults. Content of these games is suitable for kids six years and older. However, they may contain some mild violence and jokes. This rating is found on games that were released prior to 1998. The E for Everyone rating replaced the K-A rating after 1998.

E: The new rating which replaced the K-A. All Pokémon games are rated E.

T: for Teen. These games are suitable for those who are 13 years and up, according to the ESRB. However, household standards may vary on individual games. T games may include some violent content and strong language.

M: for Mature. These games should not be played by anyone under 17 years old. They almost certainly include violence and strong language. They may also include adult situations.

AO: Adults Only. No one under 18 should be allowed to play these games.

Rating Pending: The game was released prior to final ESRB decision. Subsequent copies of the game will probably include rating.

this ain't no baby video game guide!

If you've read the other video game books, then you know this guide is different from all the others. For one thing, I've tried to make this guide funny and interesting to read. Like the other books, I've put in a lot of jokes and stupid stuff to make it more interesting. A lot of the guides you see out there are all business. They are very technical, which is fine, but they are also written in a serious tone. I think video games should be fun and that video game guides should be fun as well.

Also, you won't find any walk-throughs in this guide. I don't like walk-throughs. I know I've said that before in the other guides, so if you've read this before, then just skip this paragraph. The reason I don't like walk-throughs is that they are a map. Kids buy the game and they buy a walk-through and then just follow the map through the game. In my opinion, that takes a lot of the fun out of the game. Video games — especially the Pokémon games — should be explored. You should feel like you played the game and learned how to play the game.

So what I've tried to do in this book — and the other books — is to give kids an idea of what the game is about and a few hints that will give them a little help to get over the tough spots. Plus I've tried to make it funny.

In this book, I've tried to cover the newest Pokémon games — the Silver and Gold versions. I've also added stuff on some of the other games, like Pokémon Stadium and Pokémon Puzzle League. Finally, I've tried to give kids an idea of what Pokémon is about and to try to get them thinking about why they like it.

gold and silver versions

System: Game Boy Color (GBC) ESRB Rating: E for Everyone

"Pokémon Gold and Silver and Stadium are my favorites because, first of all, Gold and Silver are new and different and kind of like fun. Pokémon Stadium because there's more than just playing the game, there's Kid's Clubhouse and trading and you play wacky games that are fun."

— Adin

GOLD AND SILVER REVIEW

Well, the Gold and Silver versions of Pokémon are finally out. And they were worth the wait. Sometimes when a video game manufacturer brings out a new game based on a previous hit, the new game is really junky. In fact, to call some video games sequels is wrong because they are often junk. I won't mention any specific games, but you know the ones I'm talking about. You've probably played a couple of them.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Pokémon Future by Hank Schlesinger. Copyright © 2001 Hank Schlesinger. Excerpted by permission of St. Martin's Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Contents

TITLE PAGE,
COPYRIGHT NOTICE,
THE FUTURE FOR POKÉMON IS NOW!,
ABOUT THE KIDS IN THIS BOOK ...,
POKÉMON FUTURE?,
WHAT POKÉMON HAS PROVED TO THE WORLD!,
POKÉMON DEAD? DON'T COUNT ON IT!,
A NOTE TO PARENTS,
THE ESRB RATINGS,
THIS AIN'T NO BABY VIDEO GAME GUIDE!,
GOLD AND SILVER VERSIONS,
POKÉMON STADIUM,
WHEN POKÉMON ATTACK!,
POKÉMON PUZZLE LEAGUE,
NEW AND IMPROVED POKÉMON GLOSSARY!,
THE RETURN OF THE TEN STUPIDEST QUESTIONS EVER ASKED ABOUT POKÉMON!,
TEN GOOD POKÉMON QUESTIONS ANSWERED,
POKÉMON ARE STARS!,
POKÉMON TV AND SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT,
CATCH LIST FOR GOLD, SILVER, BLUE AND RED,
WHAT'S GONNA BE NEW ... SOON!,
TIM'S GLITCH CITY AND MISSINGNO CHAPTER,
ARE POKÉMON CARDS STILL COOL?,
DUMB FACTS FOR FREE,
THE END (REALLY?),
ALSO BY HANK SCHLESINGER,
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS,
ABOUT THE AUTHOR,
COPYRIGHT,