Gotta Catch 'em All

We all know the Wii U isn't doing so well at the moment. Something which is mainly down to Nintendo launching its latest hardware without an entry of any of their major franchises. There have already been a lot of column inches dedicated to that issue, so I'm not going to add to them. What the Wii U needs is a killer app. Something that couldn't be done on any other console. So why not give the fans what they want and start work on the much requested Pokémon MMO? It would be a guaranteed system seller, especially if a copy was bundled in at the point of sale.

The Wii U is uniquely suited as a platform to a console MMO, with the GamePad adding DS functionality to the living room, the touch screen makes not just juggling menus, but in game communication much simpler than it would be on the PS3 for instance. Nintendo are also blessed with ownership of the Pokémon franchise, one of the most successful names in the business, and a set of games whose single player mechanics would translate very easily into an MMO. Combining the two would effectively be a licence to print money. So without further ado, I present my own hypothetical Pokémon Universe design document.

At its most basic level, the Pokémon MMO should contain every one of the regions that have appeared across the series' history, and all 649 Pokémon that would appear in those regions. Some Pokémon would have specific habitats just like real world animals, to encourage worldwide travel to Catch 'em All.

Getting into the game starts with character creation. Pick your gender and assemble your avatar from a variety of options to create a character that looks like you would if you'd stepped through the screen into the Pokémon anime. Obviously there should be a wealth of basic options, with new outfits unlockable as you work through the game as a mark of progression.

Now, we can't all come from Pallet Town because it would cause horrible congestion in the early stages of the game. So while creating a character, one of the options that needs to be picked is that of your hometown. You could choose any town from any region, from Cinnabar Island to Cerulean City in Kanto for instance. Whatever takes your fancy. Once the game begins, you find yourself in your hometown with instructions to get to the nearest post office to collect your Pokédex, freshly delivered from Prof. Oak's Mail Order Pokédex Co.

With your Pokédex in your backpack, the next task would be to take your pick of one of three starters from the local Pokémon centre. Starters depend on the region of the world your hometown is in. Hoenn starters would be different from Johto starters for instance. Once you have your first Pokémon, and a stash of pokeballs helpfully given to you by Nurse Joy to help get you started, you can venture out into the wide world and begin your journey to become a Pokémon master.

Wild Pokémon levels would not be able to steadily climb upwards as you get further away from your hometown like they do in the portable games because of the fact that every town in Pokémon Universe can be somebody's hometown. As a result, out on the field there would be no random battles. Wild Pokémon levels would be widely variable to account for trainers of greatly different strengths being in the area, having travelled from all over the world. You can pick your battles as levels will be shown hovering above any wild Pokémon you see.

Of course, the real meat of any Pokémon game is battling other trainers, and again, this being an MMO, trainer strengths would not be able to steadily increase as the player progresses like they do in the core titles. To help level the playing field, every trainer is assigned to a division based upon the average level of the Pokémon in your squad by the Pokémon League. New trainers start in the lowest division and climb to a higher one each time they defeat a gym leader from the division that they are ranked in. Out in the field, you can offer to battle anybody, but the trainer in the lower division can chose to decline a battle if he or she wants. This should help avoid the new trainers being constantly demolished by old hands.

The aim of the game is still to beat each region's gym leaders and take on the regional elite four, with the goal of defeating each region's elite four to become a world Pokémon champion. Each gym will have a leader for each division, and players can join a monthly divisional tournament to reign as gym leader for a certain division. Since gym leaders only use one type of Pokémon, tournaments will also have a type restriction. Once you have been a gym leader for the lv50+ division, you can enter a monthly elite four tournament. The winner of that tournament is the elite four champion, with the four runners up assigned as the regional elite four. A tournament of elite four champions could be open to determine the champion of champions.

Elsewhere there should be plenty of side quests. You could go fossil hunting and try to resurrect yourself an Aerodactyl. You could choose to join Team Rocket. NPCs in towns would offer story based quests, often based around stories from the Pokémon anime. There would, of course, be trading, breeding, and versions of the many mini games that have appeared throughout the franchise history. There would be a stadium for those players who just wanted to battle or for those who just fancy spectating on a huge rumble. You could go hunting for legendary Pokémon. There would obviously be more than one of each, this being an MMO, but would still be super rare. Perhaps you need a special pokeball to be able to catch them, only available after defeating a regional elite four. A major sidequest would be photography, using the GamePad as a camera a la Pokémon snap, creating pictures that could be shared in a gallery or in the MiiVerse. You could even ride larger Pokémon as mounts, like a less conventional version of the famous Pokémon bicycle. The possibilities are wide and varied.

Obviously there are one or two hurdles that would need to be overcome. Voice chat and moderation would be the biggest of these, especially with Nintendo's obvious need to keep things safe for the kids. Although it's not insurmountable. Perhaps Nintendo could lock voice chat to people who have shared friend codes, with communication with others in the vein of Phantasy Star Online on the Dreamcast, through certain text phrases and a set of symbols.

A Pokémon MMO would work, and most importantly, would sell a boatload of Wii Us. We'd all like to see one, and perhaps, if we're lucky, we might even get one. Do it for the fans Nintendo. We'd play the hell out of it. Bring us the Pokémon MMO and wipe away the debt.

PS. Mr Iwata, if you see this and would like to use it. I'd like 1% commission on the profits please!

A Scattergun shot of a post.

A lot can happen in a week, HMV went into administration, I completed Bayonetta, and discovered that I'd been taking the virtually unlimited memory in my 360 for granted. Somewhere amongst that I should really make room for my impressions of the Wii-U too.

After a lot of years of badgering from my recent guest blogger, I decided to start Persona 4 on Monday. This required the not inconsiderable action of connecting my PS2 up, since it's space on the component input on my TV was taken by the Xbox when I got Rocksmith to cure the game's lag. Cables duly swapped, I blew out all the dust and fired up the PS2. I'd forgotten how loud it was. Although it is 11 years old now. The game starts and tells me I have no room on the memory card.

Well this is novel.

I swapped it for another and that turned out to be full too. So I swapped it for the third. Also full. With 250gb of memory in the 360, this is an issue I haven't come up against in a long time. Saving stuff nowadays is pretty much fire and forget. How did I squeeze the saves from almost seventy PS2 games into a paltry 24mb? Cue a bit of cursing and then an hour spent cross referencing saves and booting games to see which of the duplicate saves were further along before deleting them and copying from one card to another to free up enough space for a save on Persona.

While doing this I found myself playing SSX 3. Completely by accident.

Persona 4 got started on Tuesday. It's a slow burner, and frankly it looks like ass compared to a lot of late PS2 games, but that really doesn't matter. It's beginning to draw me in. I'm looking forward to continuing it. I did promise I was going to start it after completing Bayonetta.

After slightly fewer years of badgering from my recent guest blogger, I finally got round t0 Bayonetta around a week ago. I used to wax lyrical about Devil May Cry and I knew that Bayonetta would be right up my street. Frankly I don't know what took me so long.

It's extremely Japanese, with all the high camp, overlong cutscenes, nonsensical story, miscellaneous quirks and badass fighting systems that come with the label. It's saddened me to see the proportion of Japanese games that I own on the 360 shrink so much compared to the last generation. Bayonetta is a great reminder of just how good Japanese games can be. The game was difficult, even on normal and when I first started, the high camp, overlong cutscenes, nonsensical story and miscellaneous quirks grated. Eventually though, I stopped caring and let myself get swept along in the silliness of it all. Bayonetta is a great character, hypersexualised yes, but assertive and strong at the same time. She's a woman that's always on top of any situation, whether she's staring down a huge boss, riding a missile in a great Space Harrier tribute or sliding a motorbike under a lorry in my personal favourite section of the game, the Outrun inspired, Afterburner soundtracked Route 666.

The real star of the show was the combat though, balanced, nuanced,  precise, yet hyperkinetic, showy and over the top. If I died it was because it was my own bloody fault rather than the fault of the game. It's never cheap, but it is busy. You need to keep track of everything, but there is no attack that cannot be dodged. If you're properly dialled in, you can't be touched.

The game is chock full of Sega references, and I wonder, with Nintendo publishing the sequel as a Wii-U exclusive, what Platinum Games are going to pull out of Nintendo's past to play with. One thing is for certain though, Bayonetta 2 on the Wii - U is going to be interesting.

I suppose this brings me neatly onto the Wii - U, which I had the good fortune to experience over christmas.

First impressions were:

1: It's small. Really small. Around half the volume of my 360.

2: The Gamepad is going to take some getting used to.

3: Oh, I get it now. It's like a giant, superpowered DS

We were playing five player Nintendoland, and I have to say, it was a whole lot of fun. A bit like Mario Party without the hateful boardgame segment. The fact that it was so much fun isn't really all that surprising. Nintendo excel at local multiplayer. Of all the games companies out there today, Nintendo is the only one that doesn't seem to have lost sight of how great getting your mates together around the TV can be. The two best games were variations on hide and seek, Mario Chase and Luigi's ghost mansion, where the player with the Gamepad used the screen to get away from the other players or sneak up on them. Getting one over on your mates without them seeing where you came from is a great feeling.

My only gripes are that there aren't any analogue triggers on the Gamepad and that the touchscreen could have a higher resolution and could be multi touch. But really, these are small issues that won't matter. Even though I've only spent time with one game, I think the Wii - U will shape up to be a really great machine, if the developers can step up to the challenge that the gamepad presents. I'd hate to see it loaded down with shovelware like the Wii was.

And finally, something to get off my chest.

I'll admit to the HMV issue hitting me by surprise, and to having a vested interest. It saddens me to think that they might go under. I have fond memories of the place. If you know me, you'll know my first album was What's the Story, Morning Glory? by Oasis, it was on cassette, but the first actual CD I bought with my own money was Feeder's Echo Park, and I bought it from HMV. While I was at college, HMV was pretty much the sole provider of the soundtrack to my life. A significant proportion of the sixtyish PS1 games I own came from there too. The internet was a pretty new thing back then, I think I was still on Dial Up, and it hadn't begun to eat into HMV's sales in the way that eventually sent it into administration. 

After a few years in the wilderness in a rubbish job, I accidentally wound up working for HMV, and I felt like I belonged there. I left last year, but my offices still join to those of my old spot at HMV and I see my old colleagues there all the time, and now I worry for them. Whether you were bothered by the news or you thought HMV had it coming because they were rubbish / too expensive / too corporate, don't forget that real people with bills and houses and children will be losing their jobs if a buyer isn't found. I don't like ending on a downer, but we all know losing your job through no fault of your own is a horrible thing. Nobody likes going to the jobcentre. Let's not wish it on the thousands of people who work for HMV.