The complexity of depth, also known as "Why I'm 23 and still play Pokémon."

Pokémon is a franchise that I first too an interest in during my dwindling years of primary school. It wasn't my first real taste of eastern televisual culture, but it was by far the one I savoured the most. I recieved Pokémon gifts at christmas and birthdays, from models that may or may not talked, up to my very own Pokédex. But the biggest gift of all that started a torrid affair was this little gem.

Because Blastoise is better than Charizard.

 Holy hell, the amount of hours I must've poured into this game are something that truly terrifies me. Countless weekends, evening, mornings before school, trips on the bus to school, at school before class, after class, during break, during lunch, on the bus home from school, after school- you get the idea. I was captivated by a world where young boys (and later, girls) would travel the world, catching strange and wonderful creatures in tiny red-and-white balls, pit them against their contemporaries and take down crime organisations, eventually earning world-wide fame as a champion.

As the years went by more and more were added to the roster. While I can safely say I clocked up more time (and restarts) on Blue, it was Silver, and later Crystal, that lead me to believe I'd found the definitive Pokémon experience. This came out in 2001 over here in Europe - I was 14, and played it with just as much vigour as I could muster. Sure it was social suicide at that age to be attached to something with such childish connotations instead of being a football fanatic, devoted to cars and other "lads' lads" activities, but I've never been that sort of person.

No thanks, bro.

During what I like to think of as the "ill-fated" Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald era, the third generation, I drifted away from the games. I'd long since lost interest in the television show, irritated at the inconsistencies in pocket monster typing and attacks being effective against types they shouldn't be all in the name of dramatic neccessity and constantly underdeveloped characters. My love of the game suffered too - even though I had a GBA, its only real use from that point onwards was to play Fire Emblem or classic Gameboy titles like (you guessed it) Silver and Crystal. I had no time, patience, or interest in the new line-up, the new setting, or any of it. It was time for a break, and a break I did have.

This changed when I got to university, and grabbed my first Pokémon game in years - Pearl. I was enthralled, but still skeptical. The new setting was fresh, the monsters had become more interesting, and typing had seemed to even out a lot more. Yet it still felt flawed and lacking from my childhood experience. Had nostalgia really painted such a convincing portrait that my mind had refused to acknowledge gaping issues in the game?

Just then, like a big "shut-the-hell-up" slap, this dropped in my lap:

Hell. Yes.

And just like that, loved bloomed again. SoulSilver was my return to the series. Remarkable in almost all ways, this and HeartGold are the definitive games of the 4th generation - remixing classic elements that have me saying "I remember this!" and filled with new surprises too, "HG" and "SS" are terrific games on their own, exceeding expectations thanks to the nostalgia hit that's so strong it feels like a mule kicked my jaw. I felt like I'd just got back in the ring from a terrible start to a fight, ready for round two.

Fundamentally there's nothing different here (except for my age climbing a little faster than I'd like) that I didn't experience all those years ago. Therefore I'm indulging in the same world of cute-critters fighting to the death that I was in when I was a decade or so younger. This is something that to this day means I'm still met with quizzical expressions from cashiers at game stores when a grown man is forking over hard-earned cash for a children's game. Hell I even indulge in conversation with them about it, more to prove a point than anything - this isn't for my kid or my nephew or my kid brother. No no sir/ma'am - this is for me. I intend to play this, and play it proudly.

You see, when I was younger the world and the actions within the game itself were enough to carry me through the title to the conclusion (if you can truly say Pokémon has a conclusion that is). Now that I'm older, a door has been opened to the competetive world of Pokémon. Ushered in by the good folks over at the Penny Arcade Pokémon thread, I've learnt the art of breeding for the proper abilities and natures, breeding for moves, and most importantly, training for effort values. This is "under-the-hood" levels of gameplay here, folks. All in the name of strategic battling.

I wanted a Slowbro weight-training for this but could not find a decent picture of it.

This is the sort of genius that leaves me dumbstruck by a franchise. Sure you felt like a tactical genius as a kid being able to pull a quick bait-and-switch and field a superior type against an inferior one, but now I'm getting into much, much more complex situations that require a significant amount of commitment to pull off. All because I've discovered a wonderful extra level of depth that I never knew existed beforehand. Don't get me wrong - HG and SS are fantastic games without having to go through the looking glass, but as an adult with a greater understanding of the concepts and mechanics I can take away so much more from the experience.


It's why I believe Pokémon to be a truly great series of games - there's enough in there for kids, and adults, to be entertained by it for hours at a time. Simple to learn, borderline impossible to master. As challenging or as easy as you want it to be. it rekindled an interest after a four-year stint of disappointment and disillusionment. If more franchises take this sort of routine we could really see some interesting changes in the world of gaming. Microsoft, Sony? Nintendo has a head-start on you when it comes to this one, but it's not too late to make a game that's easy for kids to play and pick up and has some deep complex stuff for adults to engross themselves in.


The greatness of this complexity is all in the execution. See, each Pokémon is boiled down into "stats" - hit points, attack, defense, special attack, special defense, and speed, which govern a variety of factors played out during a battle. Let's take my Slowbro - he's a little on the slow side, but has great defenses and hit points to make up for it. In order to maximise, say, his defense, I would need to go out and fight a number of other defensively-oriented Pokémon like... I dunno, Geodude. Then when my Slowbro levels up, he'll get a boost to his defense stat because of his experience beating up high-defense monsters. These are called Effort Values. Easy and somewhat logical to execute, isn't it? Well you've just entered a whole new world of training up a great Pokémon to use competetively. Welcome to the next plateau, buddy.


There are some parts of the meta-game I just will not indulge in, however, and that's another thing that makes the experience worthwhile. Individual Values are randomly assigned numbers that affect stat growth for monsters, but it isn't anything I can get my head around, or need to, at this juncture. The inherent complexity of the game runs much deeper, but I can easily delve as deep or as shallow into it as I want.And this is good game design. Depth of complexity can be a bad thing. As I mentioned in my previous article, I enjoy playing Super Street Fighter 4. The depth of fighting proves to be far too daunting for me in most circumstances. I'll never get my head around "frame-traps", or look at frame data. Option select is a term that might as well be relevant to the games' menu for me. I can't even reliably perform a FADC (focus attack dash cancel). I get by at my current level of skill and playing, most of the time, but there's this whole other plateau I cannot reach because of two factors:

1. I am limited by my use of controller - an Xbox 360 controller - and it would take weeks, perhaps months, to relearn how to play using an arcade stick and buttons, as well as costing anywhere between £70 and over £100, just for a controller. I'm inevested, but not that much.
2. SSF4 is a real-time game. There is no turn-based mode and strategies are developed on the fly depending on how your opponent plays. I can chastise myself watching my replays all I want, but I've only become marginally better because I can't test out what I've learnt in a reliable scenario.

Pokémon alleviates both of those two problems by relying only on the console, and being turn-based. Or, to put it more eloquently...

Cherry-picking.

"I am able to pick and choose the level of depth and complexity I want to play at, and this decision is affected by factors only inherent in the game itself."


Now think about this - wouldn't it be great if games, and the people who develop these wonderful things - included more factors that dictated the depth of complexity as a means to bring older and younger gamers together to enjoy something? There's only a handful of games that do this - why can't there be more of them?


I'm Duncan Brown. I live in England, I'm 23 years old, and I'm a Pokémon Trainer. Come join me.