The Pokémon world mirrors the real world in many ways, in a social sense, an environmental sense and even technologically (Of course, the Pokémon world is much more ideal environmentally). Technologically, they have different types of devices, though they mirror real devices, such as the PokéDexes in past generations.
One thing that we never got to see much of are their video games. We have seen what TV shows they watch, their advertisements and even a radio channel. They have games inside games, but not video games, though there are quite a few glimpses of them. This makes it an interesting topic to cover.
Should you want to find out more, please proceed.
The Glimpses
While the existence of video games in Pokémon is difficult to prove, there are quite a few instances video games are shown. In the pre-DS games, there are some sprites depicting boys playing what looks like a game device. It might seem odd to see such characters existing, but they were there. Usually, they are depicted as players playing a real Pokémon game, as though there is a disconnection between them and the world, much like how those who are engrossed in computer games have a disconnection with the real world (no offence to anybody). The image below is from Pokémon Silver.
(Credit goes to Spriter’s Resource)
It should be noted that later on in video games, you don’t really see NPCs playing video games any more. My theory is that as we get to see more of how a Pokémon world is like, the world becomes less of a game and more of a realised fictional world. The presence of video game players in a Pokémon world would have been more obviously meta, so I could understand their omission.
The anime had a bit of this as well, though like the games, the Pokémon world becomes more realise that having video game players would have that disconnection where their presence would be out of place, especially if they are talking video game concepts like levelling up. One such early episode is “The School of Hard Knocks”, where there is a simulator between a Grass-type and a Water-type.
These are the examples of video games in Pokémon as far as I know. There might be more instances that I am not aware of. With such few examples, let’s speculate what kind of games the Pokémon world might have.
Type of Video Games in Pokémon
The few glimpses of video games in Pokémon is a sign that there exist video games in the Pokémon world after all. Based on this, let’s see what kind of games they might have.
One example that comes to mind is a simulator, based on the anime episode I mentioned earlier. A program that allows for theoretical matchups between Pokémon would no doubt be useful to have. We even have simulators in real life to determine a Pokémon’s usefulness and their strategies in a more safe and efficient manner, so it’s possible that simulators in the Pokémon world are built for those purposes.
Virtual reality is another type of video game that could possibly exist, considering how technology in Pokémon tend to be more advanced than the real world (we are still finding out the best way to bring VR to the masses). It could be used as a training program where Pokémon would target any moving object to hone their skills, or if they have the technology, they might have an interactive terrain for training purposes.
Now what about examples of real video games? So far, we talked about games that would aid training Pokémon, but surely there is more variety than that. Maybe, similar to how our world imagine Pokémon, the Pokémon world would imagine our animals as their Pokémon, making our interests and their interests two-way. It could even be a popular series for them, because we do have interesting animals. Maybe you think our animals are boring, having being accustomed to them, but there is a chance they would be quite interested to learn about our animals.
The “Animals” concept could be used in all sorts of ways, like rearing them (think Nintendogs), controlling them as player characters or maybe putting them in fights. The latter might seem quite cruel to us, but they won’t worry about it since their world is about Pokémon fighting each other. Let’s take this a step further and say that they have a “Pokémon Crossing”, which is Animal Crossing with Pokémon as the animals.
Video games featuring humans would likely be quite similar to ours as well, with things like football and basketball, though with a Pokémon twist if Pokémon are involved, such as jockey. A sports game where one could play as champions would have been a dream come true, because those are the people they idolise a lot, so getting a chance to do what Steven or maybe Cynthia would do if you are them would be quite an experience.
There are a great deal of possibilities on what video games in are like, so what I mentioned here is just the tip of the iceberg. What are some of the video games do you think exist in the Pokémon world? Comments are quite welcomed regarding this subject. I hope you enjoyed reading this article as much as I have writing it.
Thanks for reading.
