Pokemon LeafGreen Version

"Nintendo needs to stop injecting CRACK into their games."

I feel addicted to LeafGreen. I can't stop playing it. I think I'll be able to quit, but then I just turn it on again! Its an addiction that I haven't felt since elementary school, but now it's back and I can't stop it! Continue down to see more of this horror story.

Pokemon FireRed/LeafGreen (which should have been WaterBlue to fit in to the US) is a remake of the old Red and Blue Pokemon games. Veterans can skip this paragraph, but those new to Pokemon can read on. The game is inhabited by animals called Pokemon. These little creatures are to be caught in the wild, trained, and used to battle. You play the role of a ten-year old boy or girl (who you can name) who is beginning the journey of becoming a pokemon trainer. With the assistance of Professor Oak (who gives you your first pokemon and pokedex), the player goes around the world, catching pokemon, defeating other trainers, and challenging gym leaders (the "bosses" of the world). Each player has a rival (who you can also name) who is competing with you for the title of Pokemon Master. Along the way you will meet a variety of characters, some of whom may show up from time to time. You will also have to occasionally stop Team Rocket, a force that uses Pokemon for evil. To help organize your quest, a Pokedex is given to you. This mini-encyclopedia gives you information on all the pokemon you have seen or caught.

The battles in the pokemon series are what they used to be. "Enemy Rattata appeared! Ash sent out Charmander! Charmander used Ember! Enemy Rattata fainted!" and so forth. Battles are turned based, and progress a bit slowly. Wild pokemon and trainers tend to be very stupid when it comes to battling, and it's not much help when those hundreds of pokemon you just whipped were all SEVERELY underpowered compared to the Gym Leader's pokemon. Fortunately, there are many different types of pokemon and moves to be used, and if one method doesn't work in a certain battle, another surely will. Difficulty can be unbalanced. Easy, hard, easy, hard, and just training one of two pokemon only can fare just as well for you as training several. If you want to complete your pokedex, you will of course want to try the latter method, as pokemon "evolve" under different circumstances. Up until what was the final battle of the old game, FRLG contains all the pokemon you saw. Once you beat that part, though, you may continue on, catching ALL the pokemon in G/S and R/S as well. There's a lot of pride in getting that far, and it's really impressive to beginner pokemon trainers.

If you want to get technical, this game doesn't perform well at all. The towns and cities all look nice at first, but when it comes down to it, they're awfully boring to be in. When you enter a cave or forest, you get to see a picture of it before you enter, which is a nice touch, but not enough to make up for the rest of the game. Battles aren't graphically exciting either. Pokemon have two pictures, one for the front and one for the back, and the attack "animations" consist of these pictures moving around crazily. Not exactly exciting. I've seen other gamers complain about the music in the game, but I don't think it's bad. The few battle themes are actually kind of fun to listen to. Sound effects are different. There are a lot of times when you will turn down your game boy to avoid hearing the awful sound effects.

There's nothing new or innovative about this game. It's just FUN. Pokemon always was fun, and it holds up today. Hopefully the pokemon game for the upcoming DS will make significant changes to the gameplay and graphics, but for now, I highly suggest you get this addictive, lighthearted game. (singing) We all live...in a pokemon world, po-ke-mon...I wanna be...the greatest master of them all...

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 09/26/04