Pokemon Turns 25: Mad Max in Bright Colours with The B

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Pokémon turned 25, and it made both Jay and Squidge feel really old. And because misery loves company, we asked The B to talk about it on the show. We also reached out to the Pokémon community for comments and questions.

Here's a sample of the full show notes - make sure to click through and check them out.

Content Warning

There are a couple of bleeped swears in this episode - because bleeped swears are funnier, right?

At 01:15:03 The B says:

it's the crack cocaine of video games
- The B

There's also a potential spoiler for the first Pokémon movie at 01:58:03, check your podcatcher for chapter markings for this.

And there is one mention of a certain type of disease, at the _VERY_ end of the episode - like, within the closing minute of the episode

Please listen responsibly

Show Notes

Welcome back to another episode of our podcast! This episode is all about Pokémon - that's right, the game which took butterfly catching and made it into a video game - and we don't mean that creepy intro bit to Resident Evil: Code Veronica, either

Pokémon turned 25 this year - 2021, in case you're listening from the future - and it made us feel super old. So we got together with The B to talk about just how old it makes us feel.

As a bit of a break from the norm, we handed over the hosting privileges to Squidge for this episode - mainly because he knows WAY more about Pokémon than Jay does.

In fact, the actual cast for this episode was:

Backpacker SquidgeBeautiful Lass JayHex Maniac B

As you can see, it was one heck of a cast.

10,000 ft View of Pokémon

We started the episode by asking everyone to give their own 10,000 ft overview of the Pokémon games. You know, in case someone listening had never heard of it.

And some of our interpretations of the games are... interesting, to say the least. It included theories as to who the main character is, where the human hospitals are, why Professor Oak can't remember his grandson's name - worst grandpa ever - whether Professor Oak and Rick (from Rick & Morty) are the same person, why normal RPG rules don't apply, and whether social services should have been involved.

It's not like The Island of Dr. Monroe. Humans aren't Pokémon. Or are they?
- Squidge

And of course Jay's description of Pokémon was provided via interpretive dance - making it harder for Squidge to edit into the episode

Basically Pokémon covers the full gamut of neglectful and abusive behaviour of other species and children
- TheB

Way to keep up those positive waves, B.

Community Comments #1

We reached out to the wider Pokémon community ahead of recording this episode, and asked for comments on what Pokémon meant to everyone. We had quite a few comments, so we wanted to pepper them throughout the episode, and these were the first set of comments.

First up was Mr. Ray, and he had this to say:

Pokémon to me meant friends. Not just with the pokemon pals I had, but that it forced a shy kid to socialize and trade so I could catch them all. Since, yknow, the game is designed for that
 - Mr. Ray of the $2 Creature Feature Podcast

Next up was Sakura, and she had this to say:

To be the best, like no one ever was because it's my destiny.
Seriously though, Pokemon means to me: nostalgia/good memories, friendship, a connection, determination, and something that makes people come together.
You don't realise the power and effect pokemon has given to people universally, until those first few notes of the original theme song play and you see a venue holding a 1000+ attendees, suddenly stop whatever they were doing and all sing the song in unison with such passion in their voices - everyone in that room is rethinking their own adventure together with everyone in that moment. It's beautiful and makes you feel wholesome that your part of such a worldwide phenomena
- Sakura

Both of these comments are wonderfully wholesome, we're sure that you'll agree.

And as B points out, both Tomb Raider and Pokémon have this uncanny ability to bring communities together. And of course we couldn't let B mention this without referencing out previous anniversary episode - which was on Tomb Raider; here's a link

CULTURAL ZEITGEIST!
- The B

Famous Firsts

No one can talk about Pokémon without talking about their firsts, and being the investigative types that we are, we wanted to know what everyone's first Pokémon game was.

Jay: Pokémon Blue

In fact, his first exposure to Pokémon was not the games, the TV shows, or the movies. But a high school maths class - which is something he goes into later in the episode, when a special guest appears

The B: Pokémon Yellow

Which had more references to the TV show; with the main character been called Ash and there was a Pikachu which followed you around the game overworld.

Squidge: Pokémon Blue

Squidge got into Pokémon through friend of the show Ik - and one of Squidge's childhood friends, along with The B - got him into it, back in his high school days.

Famous First Starters

Just like our famous first games, the choice of your first starter reveals a lot about someone. As such, we wanted to know which Pokémon we each chose as our first starter.

Jay: BulbasaurIt's the correct answer; everybody knows
- Jay

Which lead to Jay calling out both Facebook and Twitter on whether he is right or not.

The B: Pikachu

Because B started with Pokémon Yellow, he had no choice over his starter Pokémon. But had he played any of the other 1st generation games before Pokémon Yellow, he would have picked Charmander.

Squidge: Charmander

Squidge let's us know that Charmander is essentially hard mode, and that he managed to brute force his way through the game with a team leader who was a fire type.

Keeping The Starter in Your Team; Yay or Nay?

Just because you pick a Pokémon at the start of the game doesn't mean that you have to use it all the way through to the end of the game. So did anyone keep that starter around all the way to the endgame?

Jay: YesIt's Team Bulbasaur all the way. All you need is Bulbasaur
- JayThe B: Yes

B has a similar strategy to Jay: keep the starter in the team and get them to level 100 - or whatever - before the end of the game. But he ...