Joshua James
Group 8
Game Review
This is my review of the game Pokémon Heart
Gold. In this piece I will talk about the history of Pokémon, the game play and
features of the game.
The Japanese company Nintendo created
Pokémon, in 1996. Developed by Game Freak, Pokémon has become the second
biggest franchise in the world based on a video game. The original Pokémon
games were Red and Blue on the Gameboy console, released to the international
market in 1998. Following the success of these games, the Yellow: Special Pikachu version was released for the Gameboy
Colour. This hit a massive market, and set the Pokémon trend as Gold, Silver
and Crystal versions were released a year later, also for the Gameboy Colour. The
third generation, Ruby, Sapphire and Emerald were released on the Gameboy
Advanced console in 2002. From these, remakes of the originals were made which
included Fire Red and Leaf Green on the Advanced console, then Heart Gold and
Soul Silver on the Nintendo DS. Some people do not like this though, as they
believe it is ruining the series by remaking original versions, though I
personally welcome them as many aspects of the game change.
Pokémon Heart Gold is a Role Play Game. While
playing this game you view game-play from a bird’s eye view whilst giving a
three dimensional perspective. The basic goal of the game is to train and level-up
your Pokémon by fighting your Pokémon against opponents in battles to
eventually becoming champion. Along the way you can catch new Pokémon, trade
and evolve members in your party.
Pokémon Heart Gold is set in
“Johto” (a fictional region of the world). You play as a young Pokémon trainer,
of which you name yourself. The ambition is to become the greatest Pokémon
trainer, and you set off on your journey with one of three starter Pokémon:
Cyniquil, Totodyle and Chikorita., given to you by Professor Elm. Along the way
you make friends in the game which give you useful hints, as well as rivals.
Your nemesis in the game is a character (of which you also name), who steals a
Pokémon from Elms Laboratory. You encounter him many times throughout the game,
and he challenges you to battles in which you cannot continue the game until
you beat him. As well as this, Team Rocket (a criminal organization) disrupts
life in the game and you have to solve puzzles and defeat there members along
the way. Most city or town in the map has a gym, in which a powerful trainer
called the Gym Leader stays. In simple terms, to complete the game, you must
defeat all 8 of the Gym Leaders, then go to the Pokémon League and defeat the
Elite Four and Champion (though some would argue that you haven’t truly
finished the game until you have caught all of the Pokémon).
The addition to Heart Gold is that Kanto,
the map and story from Fire Red (the previous game), is also playable after you
defeat the Elite Four and Champion. It is assumed that you have completed Fire
Red before playing this game, as many aspects from Fire Red’s story line have
already been completed. For example, in Fire Red, you capture the legendary
Pokémon Zapdos from the power station and fix it. In Heart gold when you get to
the same power station it is fixed and there are no problems. The champion in
Kanto is a person simply named “Red”, who is the character you play as in the
Fire Red game. This is the big argue point of the game. Many believe Pokémon Heart Gold should stay strictly to the
original Gold Version, but others argue that then defeats the point of remaking
it. I think that adding new side quests and stories makes the game more dynamic
and enjoyable, as it feels like a different game but still has the ‘old feel’
to it.
By crossing the line of sight from a
trainer, you have accepted the challenge and must battle with your Pokémon. After
this, the battle scene opens in which the first Pokémon in your party is used
against the opposition.
You have the option to select to fight, use
an item, and switch Pokémon or to leave to battle (which you can only do
against wild Pokémon).
To win the battle,
simply defeat all of the opposing Pokémon by making them faint. You then get
experience points, which level up your Pokémon, making it stronger and teaching
it new attacks. The fighting style is very basic, though I believe a lot of
strategy is needed. This is because Pokémon have different “types”, for
example, fire type and water type. Water type Pokémon will do super effective
damage to fire types, so choosing your Pokémon and what move you do is
critical.
You can trade Pokémon wirelessly to other
games, as well as battle real people using the Nintendo Ds’ Wifi. You can also
transfer the Pokémon to a “pokewalker” devise, in which one Pokémon will stay
on and gain 1XP point every step you take when you walk with the pokewalker. You
can also gain special and rare items from the pokewalker. This means you can battle with old Pokémon from
other games. As the game is single player, there are
little other features to the game. This could be a downside because once the
game has been completed there is little else to do, where as many other role
play games have mini games and more side quests to complete. Though you could
say that adding more to the game will simply be “trying to hard”, and that the more
simple the game the better.
The graphics of the game is made up of
pixels. Sprites are used in battle scenes with the battle moves starting from
the centre of the platform which the Pokémon stand on.
In the Pokémon world, there are different
songs depending on where you are. There are different songs for each city/town
and for every section of the map where routes are. The graphics and music are
very basic and some argue that ‘more’ could be done in the battle scenes. For
example, using moving animations in battle scenes instead of still pictures of
the Pokémon would make the game a
lot more interesting to play and watch.
To conclude, in this
review I have talked about the history of the game, gameplay, features and
graphics of the game. I have added my own opinion where necessary, and balanced
arguments accordingly.
Self experience.
No comments:
Post a Comment