Seriously, this is yet another instance of absolute and complete research failure on the part of the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. I am plenty for the ethical treatment of animals, but I also really, really like steak so I'm basically Hitler to PETA (though hey, it's the internet, so it's hardly the first time I've been called Hitler.
So yes, once again (thanks to the sharp uprising in series popularity thanks to Pokemon Go), we are thrown into the jowls of maniacal insanity that is PETA and their anvilicious quest to take Upton Sinclair's The Jungle to an ideological extreme that Lewis Carroll himself could not write something absurd enough to match. There is no joy, there is no humor - not unlike the last time we did a foray into the mind of madness. This is PETA using the thing guise of Pokemon to epouse their mission statement without any sort of subtlety or skill. It is shameless and nonsensical ramblings that strawman anyone who is a fan of the Pokemon series so intensely to almost make them seem more like Saturday Morning Cartoon villains than actual people.
The game begins with Pikachu, who you may remember from the last game, deciding that he has had it with all these fothermucking trainers ruining his fothermucking life and fights back against a Bizarro-universe version of Cheren - one of your rivals from Pokemon Black and White. Upon leaving, he takes Tepig with him and goes on a quest to free the good Pokemon of Unova from the cruel hands of trainers with the aid of Nurse Jenny - seemingly the only "good" human that exists in this universe.
The game mechanics haven't changed since the last game either, but then it follows on from how the Pokemon games themselves haven't changed in ever, so I won't rag on that point too much.
But again, what drags this down is the complete lack of attention that was paid to the morals that Pokemon tries to teach children, as well as a complete lack of humor and a sheer buffet table-worth of bad design choices and preachy moralities that leave anyone who plays this feeling disheartened or just plain pissed off that they wasted their time playing this crap.
And it is clear that someone at least played one of the games...or read the Wikipedia entries on it. Then again, maybe they just thought that Nintendo trying to brainwash into children the belief that Pokemon are just tools to be used for their whims and not living creatures that deserve their love and respect. I'm gonna go ahead and tell you, PETA...there's no subtext here. You're just a bunch of idiots. And idiots you have proven again to be.
Pokemon, ultimately, is all about how Pokemon are just as important as people, and that it's the bond between a trainer and his/her Pokemon that allows them to truly be great. Sure, there are people who will mistreat or misuse Pokemon, but through the games and the anime they are treated as the bad people. Indeed, the one criminal group who claimed to be about the liberation of Pokemon...was headed by a man who really wanted all Pokemon for himself. As you actually pointed out in this game, when Ghetsis shows up and rants about how he'll use the skins and meats from Pokemon to feed the people of Unova.
Like I said in the review of the first one, the designs are awful and are so mean-spirited that they would almost be funny if it wasn't so sad. Professor Juniper looks like she just escaped from an asylum, frizzled hair and wielding a scalpel and a syringe in a menacing manner. Ghetsis wears a coat that is presumably stitched from Pokemon skins, and once more all the Pokemon look like they've just got off the set of an Eli Roth picture and haven't yet cleaned off the makeup.
The best part comes when you run into Ash. Yes, Ash. Ketchum. As in, the character from the anime who is not actually in the games (Red is completely different, being competent). The sheer madness and plain and simple disrespect for the franchise comes in Ash being portrayed as an uncaring, sociopathic jackass to Pikachu. Again, Pokemon's all about the bond that trainers and their Pokemon share, and Ash and Pikachu are the living example of that. Sure, they've butted heads over the years, but the two of them have stuck together through thick and thin ever since the Spearow attack in the anime's first episode, and there's nothing the two of them wouldn't do for one another.
Showing him like this...dressed up in a bizarre circus ringmaster get up of all things and wielding a whip and a bloodied bullhook is pretty much the death knell of any credibility you could have had in this, PETA. Not, after the first attempt, that you had any to begin with. You didn't actually care about making something enjoyable, you just made something preachy and ultimately rather boring. Really, like the first one, that's all this is - preachy and boring.
And apparently believing that Nintendo has some kind of cultist mentality to brainwash children into hating animals, which is absolutely insane for reasons that I've mentioned already.
So, for anyone who doesn't care to read all that: "0/10, too much water". For PETA, on the off chance that you ever read this (and I know you won't): go back to putting Pamela Anderson's boobs into faux leaf bras, because you suck - and I mean suuuuuuuuck - at making video games.
No, I'm not linking you to the game. If you want to play it, Google it. I have another steak to eat.
Can Nintendo go ahead and sue these people so they'll stop making these really, really bad games, please?
For the latest from the MadCapMunchkin, be sure to follow him on Twitter @MadCapMunchkin.
No comments:
Post a Comment