The history of Pokemon began with one single japan man named Satoshi Tajiri. It was his hobby. Over time he decided to put his idea of catching creatures into practice, to give children the same thrills he had as a child of catching insects and tadpoles Ao Ashi. Tajiri and friends worked a lot of hours on designs and Tajiri even went with unpaid hours to make his dreams come true for the game. It nearly drove partners bankrupt, and several employees quit due to financial conditions. The first Pokemon games, Pokemon red and green, came to Japan on February 27, 1996, which fulfilled Tajiri’s dreams. Because of the success rate in Japan with the Pokemon games, they released it overseas.
The anime, as well as Pokemon Yellow, marked Pikachu as the most popular and recognized creature in Pokemon history, turning it into the franchise’s mascot. This led to a small spin-off game called Hey You, Pikachu!, which was released in Japan on December 12, 1998, and in North america on November 6, 2000. This was a virtual-pet game, utilizing the Nintendo 64’s Voice Recognition Unit to let the players interact verbally with Pikachu. When the anime finished following the games’ story with Ash’s defeat in the Pokémon League in January 1999, it started a new season in a new region called the Orange Archipelago.
A major overhaul of the main game series occurred when Pokemon arrived on the Game Boy Advance on November 21, 2002 when Ruby and Sapphire Versions were released in Japan. Trainers found themselves in the southern land called Hoenn where 135 new Pokemon were waiting to be discovered. The games reached North america on March 18, 2003 and had many new features, the most prominent being Pokemon Contests, Double Battles, Pokemon Abilities and Natures for each Pokemon. Also introduced in these versions were more types of weather and two new villain teams, Team Magma and Team Aqua..
The anime began a new series, Advanced Generation series, which started in Japan on the same day as the release of the games and reached North america almost a year later. A great deal was changed in this series, including the introduction of a new main character, May, based on her game counterpart. Many people think the new Black and white Pokemon characters look strange. But why is this? I think the reason is because the Pokemon company switched their design team. The biggest lost is the fact that Satoshi Tajiri hasn’t worked on the games since the days of Gold and silver. This is probably the main reason why Generation III and Generation IV Pokemon looked so different from Generation I and Generation II Pokemon. Generation V which is just coming out will probably look just as strange.
There is a team of people that are in charge of designing the monsters. They come up with all the ideas. They decide which ones are the best and refine them into the final characters. After that, Ken Sugimori draws the chosen designs. In the first generation, there was a group of four people including Ken Sugimore. Satoshi Tajiri, the creator of Pokemon, had the role of approving the monsters and suggesting changes after the basic ideas were designed.
Presently, Junichi Masuda took over after Ruby Sapphire. Ever since then, Satoshi Tajiri has not been working on the games at all. He’s listed as the executive director in most games. What this means is that he is the original creator. He approved this game but was not an active part of its development. Sometimes he is listed as an executive producer, which means that he funded it but was not an active member in developing it.
So, to sum up, Satoshi Tajiri is not really putting an effort into the monster designs anymore. The Pokemon design” of D/P/Pt was held by thirteen people. Ten of these people did not work on the first generation’s Pokemon. Shigeki Morimoto (he added Mew to the game) also stopped doing monster design during D/P/Pt. Therefor, the people coming up with the Pokemon ideas are, for the most part, different people each generation. R/S hired a lot of people, and that’s why the third generation’s style was so different. Black and white has also hired a different staff. Nintendo and Game Freak have always been able to intrigue and capture the interest of gamers. The Pokemon characters and games are now in the fourth generation. Pokemon Soulsilver is yet another example of the the magic of game software. You can spend hours and hours mastering the moves and characters of this role-playing game series. This particular RPG entrant in the Pokemon family is a redo of the Pokemon Silver that was launched by Game Boy Color in 1999.
Soulsilver was released in March of 2010 to high reviews. Pokemon HeartGold and Soulsilver are rated by Metacritic as the highest DS games ever. Selling records are also at the top of the mark. Famitsu, a Japanese magazine for gamers game these two games a 10 out of 10 rating in one review and a 9 out of 10 score in three additional reviews. The popularity and quality of the original Gold and silver games has been retained by the creators.
The Pokewalker peripheral is bundled with the game. It is a pedometer that links to the DS game card through infrared signals. For those who are into techno gadgets, this is a good reason to invest in the game. The gadget is a new twist to the standard games in the Pokemon fourteen year series successes.
If you wonder what SoulSilver is all about, it’s not hard to play and become addicted to the concept. The point of the game is to become the world’s best Pokemon trainer. You can catch those with certain strengths and use them to exploit the weaknesses of other characters. The extensive quest to become the top trainer is filled with things to discover and battles to win. One appealing feature of this RPG is the ability to have any character follow you.