When Everything Is Legendary, No One Really Is

This piece comes to us from one of our newest writers, Ian David! Catch him at a more regular pace here at eSports Inquirer.

“If Everyone’s a Legendary, Then No One Is?”

Well, not necessarily. I just figured an Incredibles quote would be funny and fit the scene.

Ah, Pokemon. I wonder what ’90s kid grew up without playing at least one Pokemon game. It’s the only game that makes it feel acceptable to have more balls than you can count — Pokeballs that is.

Ever since Pokemon Red/Green/Blue, Pokemon has seen so much improvement (or enhancements?) in gameplay over the years. To name a few, you have those link cables that allowed you to battle and trade before from Generation I-III, wherein if you’re about to lose, one person can just pull the plug and say they “accidentally” disconnected it, possibly corrupting their save files and contributing to their bad childhood as well. There are also those wireless adapters that really never caught on, its only appeal being the “Mystery Gift” feature.

Then you have those secret bases in Gen III Ruby/Sapphire, and moving on to those cool underground bases in Pearl/Diamond where it was so fun to mine for things. Finally, we now have those really cool revamped secret bases in the recently released Pokemon Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire (ORAS), which are already considered to be Generation VI. Oh, how time flies.

Ancient Relics

But speaking of ORAS, there’s one thing that I feel has completely changed the playing field: there is an absurd amount of legendary Pokemon.

I mean, really. There’s so much more than I can count now. You can literally catch more legendary pokemon in ORAS than in the original Ruby/Sapphire. Groudon, Kyogre, Rayquaza, Deoxys, Latios and Latias are a given, but there are even more — Regigigas, Lugia, Ho-Oh, Suicune, Raikou, Entei, Palkia, Dialga, Giratina. Poop, give me a glass of water.

It’s rather blatant that this has never been done with any other Pokemon game before. Obviously, there are more legendary Pokemon now and that’s an amazing thing. People who have just been introduced to the Pokemon world would have an easier time being immersed by encountering Pokemon that aren’t as accessible as before.

But here’s the thing: is the experience different altogether? The immersion, the gameplay? Well, of course it is and that’s not necessarily a bad thing, but how does this change things?

Do the legendary Pokemon still feel special? I mean, don’t get me wrong. Many legendary Pokemon have stats beyond compare, but does this defeat the point of a Pokemon being called a “legendary”?

Back in the ’80s, when the third generation of video game consoles were coming into the marketplace, video games had this sense of mystery around them. A lot of developers didn’t really put game manuals along with their games, so they relied on the player’s creativity to figure things out on their own. With that kind of experience, it somewhat gave each game a certain pizzazz, a certain kind of magic.

People didn’t really have access to the Internet, so they couldn’t just go to GameFAQs and look up a walkthrough. The mystery was there. And so with Pokemon, the mystery was present as well. No one knew who these legendary pokemon were. There was so much mythos behind them: made-up stories, possible origins even fake walkthroughs on how to get them were all the rage.

I swear, I spent how many hours on that secret truck in S.S. Anne trying to look for that darn Mew. They mostly spread through word of mouth. They fueled the fire of how special it was to be a legendary. And not only that, it often  felt like it was such a difficult feat to capture them.

But now, oh hello, Internet. Knowledge is everything. Everyone knows so much about a particular thing and in this case, Pokemon. It doesn’t mean that these legendary Pokemon are any less special and magical, but one thing’s for sure: a lot of people know about them now. But does that kind of immersion lower the standard of what a legendary is? Maybe I’m just a little old-fashioned. There are still some things people can’t explain in ORAS, like a possible theory saying that the reason you can even get to these legendary Pokemon is because of a certain someone (look up Hoopa).

A little limelight on previous generation games:

Okay, let’s say you’re an old -timer (somewhat) and you’ve just purchased a copy of Pokemon FireRed. Assuming you’re really excited on playing a new Pokemon game, you grind through hours trying to progress through the plot. Next thing you know, you encounter Suicune. Man, that Pokemon was hard to catch. It’s one of the few that can be labeled as a “roaming pokemon”.

Generally, the idea is that these are Pokemon that randomly change the place where they can be captured. You heading to Route 10? Suicune’s heading off to a route that’s possibly the complete opposite. Despite the immense difficulty of catching it, it gave a feeling of satisfaction and pride that can only be achieved because of a certain kind of task. This was the same for Emerald/Ruby/Sapphire wherein not many people knew how to accomplish the task of catching Latios or Latias. There weren’t a lot of walkthroughs on how to even encounter them. They were so difficult to catch because of the fact that they like to flee a lot.

Let’s take a look at ORAS. If you haven’t played it before and don’t mind a little *spoiler*, depending on what version you get, Latios/Latias is just given to you. This is a blatant contrast to its previous generation counterpart wherein you wreck your running shoes or get a flat tire in your bike just for a chance to see them in the wild. The difficulty is gone. One of the primary legendary Pokemon in your version is just given to you without any effort whatsoever.

I don’t want to rant about it, but I’d like to think that what makes a legendary Pokemon special (other than the fact that they’re extremely powerful and there’s so much lore and back story given to them) is the difficulty that comes with catching it. In games such as Pokemon Emerald, there’s even a reflexive mini game to travel up along the Sky Pillar so you can encounter Rayquaza. Even for the legendary golems (Regice, Registeel, Regirock), all of their caves involve some kind of platformer puzzle in order for you to finally meet them in battle.

This is what I miss from the old-generation games. I’m not saying that GameFreak thought that catching legendaries are such a menial task that they decided to just give it to you, but I feel like there is less innovation when it comes to giving you that feeling of becoming a Pokemon Trainer again. In every game of Pokemon, you aspire to be a great Pokemon Trainer. To some extent, maybe even a Pokemon Master. But it’s not just the title that you want to achieve. You want to have a great adventure! I want to explore caves. I want to defeat bad guys. I want to save the world. In Pokemon, you play to feel like you were meant to be something bigger than you could ever think of  — to matter at a monumental level.

I guess in the end, I’m not saying that the ease of acquiring legendary Pokemon completely destroys the experience, but at the very least, it sure does reduce the enthrallment the player feels and maybe, even the standard of what it means to be a “Legendary Pokemon”.

But hey, as I said, I might just be old-fashioned. It’s just an opinion. What do you think?

*Note: The columnist’s views do not represent eSports Inquirer’s position on the topic or issue being discussed in this article.

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