I have played a lot of Pokémon games through this project thanks to their consistent popularity in the UK. The success of the Nintendo DS helped take things up another level still, giving us not just Pokémon Ranger as a chart-topper but, in Pokémon SoulSilver, the first Pokémon remake to make it to #1. SoulSilver and HeartGold were updated versions of Silver and Gold, the latter of which was #1 here on the GameBoy Color. And while games nostalgia hadn’t got as far along eating its own tail in 2010 as now, it’s worth noting that Silver and Gold had been released here less than a decade previously.
For Pokémon, that decade had been a long decade and no time at all, its rapid-fire UK releases partly a product of the initial delay that meant it only took off here in the year 2000. Game Freak’s pattern of iteration and reiteration would have led to a feeling of repetition anyway, but it was even more apparent. And coming off Pokémon Diamond and Pokémon Platinum, the thing which initially stood out most about playing Pokémon Soulsilver was that it could so easily have passed to me as a new DS game if I didn’t know otherwise.
This is a credit to its careful updating, the tile-by-tile reimagining of its world, the new models of every little creature, and the integration of DS-specific features. Occasional glimpses of its origins peek through – the three letter colour abbreviations, Blu Apricot and all; the repetitive phone calls where you get to hear how Joey’s rattata is in the top percentage of rattata; the presence in the story of an already vestigial Team Rocket. Mostly, though, when surfing and flying around, running into legendary pokémon, and staking out routes, it feels right up to date.
Is this because Pokémon Diamond was itself essentially a Game Boy Color Pokémon game with a new lick of paint anyway? Well, yeah, but is that all bad? Elsewhere in the games world, an ever-growing conservative aversion to anything that wasn’t a sequel was often combining with the need for constant progress for the sake of progress to homogenising and stifling effect. If Pokémon wasn’t innovating, at least it confidently remained the best version of itself again and again with each new story. With a new set of pokémon and a couple of tweaks, the process of its battles, of working out and exploiting weaknesses, of trying to balance the progress of your team, is as enjoyable as ever.
Some of the reasons for staying the same are highlighted in the game. In a remake of the second entries, you already encounter a battle against a “Pokéfan” with a pikachu, and with a baby in a pikachu onesie. It’s very knowing about the impact of the first game and everything that went with it, and at the same time doesn’t reflect how much more than just the iconography was adored and remained. Like a pokémon captured by the attract move, it was immobilised by love.
While the differences between games may not be big but they are there. In some senses Pokémon games don’t have a lot of story, and that applies to Silver/Gold/SoulSilver/HeartGold especially. Just as each Pokémon crams a lot of personality into a small design and a few moves, though, the repetition of routes, battles and gyms mean each deviation takes on significance.
After a series of gyms with the standard build-up battles, there’s a bit where you cure a lighthouse-powering pokémon and each person in the gym with the ! above their head is just coming over to give messages of encouragement, and it feels lovely. The way the game pushes you into a handful of battles with powerful wild pokémon feels like a subtle gift and encouragement of its own as you can capture them and improve your team. The kimono girls who you help at intervals right throughout the game eventually coming together as one Eevee-powered battle team is another moment that puts a tiny bit of narrative on a big scale very effectively.
Pokémon Soulsilver is the first Pokémon game I’ve ever finished, or at least the first where I became league champion and rolled the credits (its post-game in a whole new/old setting is particularly famous and big). There are many reasons for that, some of them nothing to do the game, but partly I think it’s the slight lean further into emphasising the basic challenge of getting better at being a pokémon trainer, which was so appealing. Even more so after playing the versions which added little extras onto that. It’s a small difference, but this series makes those count.
Top of the charts for week ending 27 March 2010:
