Captured and Captivated- Pokémon SoulSilver Reviewed

After my 14 year Pokémon absence, I was more than just a little nostalgic when SoulSilver arrived at my office.   I spent the remainder of my work day humming the title theme to the original Pokémon games and belted out the old cartoon intro on my drive home.  I was lived on the cusp of being “too old” for Pokémon when it was first released for the GameBoy in 1996.  After reading an article in Electronic Gaming Monthly about the coming PokéPhenomenon, a friend asked me “are you ever too old for a turtle with guns on his back?”  I answered “no” and started the pre-holiday begging process to ensure a copy would rest under my non-denominational winter festive vegetation.  I played Pokémon Blue until I caught all 150 Pocket Monsters and leveled my Blastoise (named “Shelby”) up to level 99, but by the time Pokémon Gold/Silver came out, I was burnt out on PokéMania, and decided not to revisit the series again for almost 15 years.

I was a little disappointed when I booted up SoulSilver and was not greeted by a familiar tune, but I remembered that most Pokéfans are returning to the game after an absence of only a year or so, so my nostalgia was probably not the target.  However, once I met Professor Elm and chose my Totodile, I was 13 all over again.  The game looks and plays like the direct descendent of a GameBoy Color game – the 3D environments mimic the tile-based maps from those early 8-Bit RPGs, the characters move one square at a time and every emotion is exaggerated enough to be apparent to an 8 year old holding a 2 inch screen.  Even the unique and distinctive digitized calls of each of the over 400 pocket monsters hearken back to a more primitive period of sound design. 

The battle system is instantly recognizable to anyone who has ever picked up a previous Pokémon title.  When you wonder through the tall grass, you will be regularly accosted by wild monsters without a pocket to call home.  You choose which of six pint-sized pets in your party will go toe-to-toe with the indigenous fauna and take turns attacking until one of them faints or you capture a new friend.  Occasionally you will come across a battle against multiple Pokémon at once, but for the most part, the formula has remained untouched for the past six iterations.  It wasn’t broken, so Game Freak didn’t attempt to fix it.