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Dom Robinson reviews
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Distributed by
Nintendo
- Price: £24.99
- Players: 1
When I first inserted Pokemon Crystalinto the Gameboy Advance, one thought crossed my mind: “I have absolutelyno idea what’s going on.” Things start to become apparent though – the moreyou play – and this latest incarnation adds to the Gold and Silver series withthe Battle Tower, the mysterious secrets of the Unown, an all-new way tocatch Suicune you can play as a male or female trainer for the first time andit’s also compatible with Pokemon Stadium 2 on the Nintendo 64.
In the game, Professor Elm, who lives in New Bark Town, the place in which youbegin your adventure, is busy continuing his research into what makesPokemon tick and he receives an email from Mr. Pokemon asking him to come andtake a look at his latest discovery, but he sends you in his place as he’stoo preoccupied with his work. There’s also a strange boy hanging about outsidewith something to say…
Strange introductions aside, your aim is to collect and train as many Pokemonas possible (there’s 151 in all, apparently) and store them in your Pokedex.You can also collect gear called Pokegear (starting to get the picture here?)such as a radio, town map, cellphone on which to call your Mum and the professorand a watch. Note that you can set the correct time as in real life and thiswill be reflected in the game – eg. play at night and it will be dark in thegame and it can also work out what GMT and BST are, although it refers to themin American terms as “Daylight Savings Time”.
The graphics and sound here are not the game’s strong point, but to theircredit they’re the same as they have been in previous variants such asGold, Silver, Red and Yellow, the game’s look having a pseudo-3Dtop-down appearance which works well in terms of enabling you to work out what’shappening. Once you’ve got into the game, the music becomes more engaging too.
Hiding in the undergrowth are the baddies in which you’ll have to fight withyour own Pokemon. I can’t remember what mine was originally called as I changedhis name to something unprintable, which adds to the amusement because thegame certainly doesn’t have an in-built profanity filter. Anyway, back to theplot and for someone who has never tried to understand the Pokeman conceptbefore I found it becoming more entertaining as I built up experience pointsfrom winning battles and going up to the next level by scratching, leeringand raging away.
While it’s easy to get to grips with, given the time, it misses out oneelement from the Japanese original. It appears they had a mobile phonefacility so that you could somehow text each other or send info about yourPokemon between the units.
What you can do with a Gameboy Advanceis toggle the screen with the shoulder buttons so as to view it in a central4:3 ratio as on the Gameboy Colour, or stretch it sideways to fill the16:9 widescreen of the latest hand-held console.
Of course, whatever I say here will be of no consequence to all the kids whoare massive fans of the franchise as they’ll want anything with Pokemon onthe cover and they’re bound to enjoy it as much as the previous outings.
Crap gag time: How do you get 151 Pikachus on a bus? Pokemon!
SOUND EFFECTS AND MUSIC
PLAYABILITY
ORIGINALITY
ENJOYMENT
OVERALL
OVERALL (for children)
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.