STACK #252 October 2025

GAMING FEATURE

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THE POKÉMON STORY

Compete from Z-A! Billed as an “ambitious new adventure”, Pokémon Legends: Z-A is set in Lumiose City. Players will explore the metropolis aiming to unravel its secrets, and the game also sees the introduction of dynamic, real-time Pokémon battles.

It was February of 1996 when the RPG phenomenon that we now know as Pokémon first launched in its native Japan. With a new entry in the core series, a sequel to 2013’s Pokémon X and Y in Pokémon Legends: Z-A , launching this month, we catch up with a bit of the history of how we got from there to here. Words Amy Flower I t may be a world-beating phenomenon now, but the origins of Pokémon lie in a self

and fast ever since. The core franchise kept things handheld, graduating from Game Boy to Game Boy Color, and then Game Boy Advance, and onwards through Nintendo’s DS, 3DS, Switch, and now Switch 2. Home consoles didn’t miss out on the fun, with side series games releasing first on the Nintendo 64, then through GameCube and Wii. The Wii U had to make do with some classic games releasing on its Virtual Console.

idea that you truly believe in, Nintendo were pitched the idea but they rejected it – several times. When the Game Freak crew became closer with Nintendo’s game guru Shigeru Miyamoto, however, they finally convinced the Big N that the idea was a good one. Little did anybody involved know just how big it would become... After several years of development, and with Game Freak skating frighteningly close to bankruptcy, the first ever Pocket Monsters game was completed, and released early in 1996 in the now familiar two flavours, in this case Pocket Monsters: Red and Pocket Monsters: Green , for the Game Boy.

published magazine entitled Game Freak , by Satoshi Tajiri, back in 1983. Tajiri soon teamed with illustrator Ken Sugimori. The huge video game

fans decided to take a next step in 1989, teaming with multitalented programmer Junichi Masuda to form a game development company, which they also called Game Freak. They developed games for the Famicom/Nintendo

Entertainment System, Super Famicom/Super Nintendo, Game Boy, and SEGA’s Mega Drive, while developing a close relationship with Nintendo. They were even entrusted with making games starring that game company’s mascots Yoshi, Mario, and his nemesis Wario. During this time, Tajiri was fascinated with the portable Game Boy, and how two units could be connected via a Game Link cable. This led to memories of his childhood, and an interest in collecting insects. When combined with a love of the Ultraman series that featured big monsters squished into teensy capsules, this kernel grew into the idea for Capsule Monsters , which later became Pocket Monsters . Proving that it’s worth persevering with an squished into teensy

Spinoff games have come thick and fast, from stadium battles to pinball, action adventures to trading card simulators, and myriad different puzzle challenges to a drawing game. Then there was Detective Pikachu which, of course, spawned a movie starring Ryan Reynolds as the lead character’s voice. The Pokémon people certainly haven’t been shy about trying new things. There have been crossovers with super-popular fighting game series Tekken , introducing us to “Pokken” in two Pokken Tournament games, and even a Pokémon Tetris . Of course, we haven’t yet mentioned the myriad television episodes, movies, trading cards, figurines, plushies…

Together they included 151 creatures to catch, train and trade with friends – using that Game Boy Game Link cable – for the player to become a Pokémon master. After the game’s popularity exploded, a special Blue edition, featuring improved graphics and sound and a bunch of gameplay and glitch tweaks, was released. It wouldn’t be until 1998 that the rest of planet Earth had an opportunity to get in on the

Pokémon craze, when Pokémon Red and Pokémon Blue , based on the upgraded Japanese Blue release, went global. Remaining a Nintendo exclusive for its major releases – there have been dalliances with mobiles, online, Mac, and Windows - Pokémon games have come thick

At current count there have been more than 120 different Pokémon video games released – some of them upgrades of previous releases – and a grand total of 1025 Pokémon to add to the ever-expanding Pokédex. If you’ve gotta catch ‘em all, you’ve quite some work ahead of you!

• Pokémon Legends: Z-A is out Oct 16

16 OCTOBER 2025

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