Azure Butterfly

Okay, so I'm coming back for a mo because holy everloving crap Game Freak has finally met my expectations. As the company who revolutionized the use of the link cable - and, by extension, multiplayer gaming as a whole, the only thing I've ever wanted out of them was innovation and games that were fun to play. And now? They've finally done it. They've gone to 3D. They've followed in the footsteps of DQIX (aka, one of my favorite games of all time) and actually made a meaningful change. The game mechanics are already near perfect - just look at what happened with triple battles in BW. They never needed to change that. What they needed to do was make the world more immersive. Pokemon is, and always has been, about exploration and learning. There's a whole new world to explore, in place of the forests and rivers and fields that so many children these days have no chance to wander. The hardware needs to showcase the world of Pokemon in a way that brings it to life and fills you with the same wonder that I once felt walking along the edge of the lake and through the neighbors' fields with my best friend...

What I'm saying is this.

Pokemon is an outlet of knowledge, of learning and teaching. There are thousands of things to memorize, but in the end, those things are meant to be taught to others. That's how Pokemon connected children like it did. It was a perfect digital imitation of the days I spent with the aforementioned friend, with the two of us trading information we knew about the animals and plants around us. For someone with high-functioning autism, Pokemon is therapy. After that friend moved away, I had no one to talk to. No one to learn from. I was alone. But Pokemon, it puts everyone on the same level, everyone is in awe of this strange and exciting new world, and everyone wants to learn about it. You never have anyone shut you down and tell you that they'd rather talk about the time of day, or how nice the weather is, rather than something you honestly cared about.

Everyone is brought together by the innate human desire to learn and teach. Pokemon exists in its own world, where that's okay, where you can go over to someone and talk about something you learned, something you care about, and have them honestly listen. And the things that need to be innovated on, well, they're the things that make this other world come to life.