The Importance Of Rarity In Pokemon Games

one of the most important aspects ever added to Pokemon is not the battles and not even the Pokemon themselves but the shiny versions of Pokemon but why they're just a few alternate colored Pokemon they're not stronger they don't have any unique traits except a few Sparkles and a color swap what makes them so special well the reason why may not be obvious at first from an outside perspective getting a Shiny Pokemon might not seem all that different from getting a rare skin or other video game achievements but when you look closer something very different is going on here I decided to run a poll on Twitter to test my theory and what happened after blew me away the question was do you remember your first shiny Pokemon within an hour I had over 100 responses and three days later I had over 3 000 votes and 500 replies while I expected this poll to get a good amount of votes and provide some good data what I didn't expect was the literal hundreds of responses of in-depth stories about people's first shiny experiences some Drew art some had lots to say and many even recalled the exact year and time one thing was for sure is this was a lot bigger than I had thought whatever was happening here was an entire different Beast than any other video game achievement how do you create something that truly sticks with people and a life full of experiences and Unforgettable moments how do you create a single lifelong memory on a tiny video game cartridge like genuinely how do you do that how do you build a world that is so tightly knit together that the Mind latches on to A Moment Like This just like it would for any substantial real-life memory and if it is just a video game achievement why don't you remember the first time this happened or this or this well the reason lies all the way back in 1996. when a player is walking through Viridian Forest and Pokemon Red and Blue it will probably take them around three to five minutes to Traverse this area and move on and they most likely won't ever return to this forest in a casual playthrough but during those few minutes something very interesting has happened the player either walked into the grass saw a few caterpies and weedles and then made their way or they found a Pikachu you see Pikachu only has a five percent chance of appearing in this Forest meaning unless you've looked into the info beforehand the majority of players will not even see the Pikachu but the point is that some will effectively creating a divide in experience that unknowingly grounds this world in wonder what are you missing and what this player may have missed in Viridian Forest they'll get in the Safari Zone although Pokemon is a very linear game your team of Pokemon is entirely up to you the world itself is built around the importance of Pokemon all anyone can talk about in these games is Pokemon every trainer every gym leader everyone and because of this Pokemon become the star it doesn't matter if you're walking down a five-tile wide dirt road if you have the choice to cultivate your own team the game suddenly feels open leaving no need for an open world this allows the game to have a structured experience but riddle it with Adventure the routes you go down now Intrigue you the urge to explore is rewarded with new Pokemon and experiences this aspect is the most important aspect of Pokemon games in my opinion the key here is curiosity what else than curiosity leads you to spend more time talking to NPCs running around in the grass for no other reason than genuine wonder and when you're diving into caves surfing every tile exploring nooks and crannies something happens you create a once in a lifetime memory [Music] [Music] what the heck wait [Music] the marketing and design of video games during this time was vastly different than the landscape today instead of microtransactions and battle passes it was more about creating a unique experience 10 years before 1996 the strategy was literally make the game as hard as possible so that people keep playing but one thing above all guaranteed people to start talking rumors many playground rumors about video games floated around in this era unlocking Sonic and Smash Bros melee blood coated Mortal Kombat Luigi in Mario 64 but without a doubt the most prominent was the mythical 151st Pokemon Mew but Mew was actually a little bit different [Music] although the rumor of Mew grew entirely organically from schoolyard to schoolyard it was actually included with direct intention to become a rumor or Legend just like the other ones I had mentioned it was even included in the games entirely behind Nintendo's back and this idea was masterminded from the creator of Pokemon Satoshi Tajiri himself and this incredibly inventive marketing technique would not only make these games an incredible success but Skyrocket Pokemon to the number one media franchise in the world in less than 20 years and the reason it had such staying power is because Pokemon has one of the most unique strategies in game design we have ever seen Pokemon at its very core is not a game Reliant on ridiculous difficulty or scientifically designed dopamine triggers it isn't even designed to tell a compelling story because it doesn't have to believe it or not Pokemon was designed to create stories incredible events or moments something you would tell someone else how even the most viewed moments in Pokemon history were in games with self-imposed rule sets they made an RPG with literally no story isn't that just ridiculous sure this was a good marketing strategy at the beginning and worked damn well with Mew but the side effect was so much deeper than that this Choice sealed game freak's fate of committing to a truly unmarked path of game design by doing this Pokemon created something wildly unique not only did they create an incredible unique style of game that arguably can never be rivaled but they unknowingly created a time capsule buried in every one of its loyal players Minds which truly achieved something incredible for a handheld game immersion although Pokemon was a pixelated Fantastical handheld game they still managed to create a level of immersion unlike anything I have ever seen a different kind of immersion not the Flawless 4K VR surround sound immersion but the complete Trust of its World in a vacuum the true longevity of this immersion was a perfect storm of many things encouraging trading among players which got people talking even more the anime and card tie-ins that added a layer of character to these Pocket Monsters paired with careful design and World building but what if the reason is so much more simple what if the reason is Shiny Pokemon things that are inherently based around luck and chance such as Mirage Island in Ruby Sapphire and emerald this is one of the most extreme cases of Rarity in these games Mirage Island was an island that manifested only if one of the Pokemon in your party had an ID that matched a randomly generated number between 0 and 65 000. that's right every Pokemon had a 1 out of 65 000 chance of spawning Mirage Island but that seems crazy right 65 000 that will never happen but the point is that for someone it will although it seems like a ridiculous chance when you break it down there is no difference between Mirage Island and Viridian Forest at the end of the day a player will find a Pikachu in the forest and a player will find an island hidden in a mirage but if you were to actually go to Mirage Island you'd find nothing too special spawn for wild why not and a special Berry that's it this is because Pokemon understands one crucial thing it's about the moment more than the reward the experience will last so much longer than the berry itself and Mirage Island isn't the only example of rare occurrences in these games when you look closely there is so much more than you think there's a one out of 65 000 chance to win a master ball from the lottery one out of 24 000 chance for your Pokemon to catch a rare virus known as pokerus there's Pokemon that only spawn on certain days of the week There's a one out of 64 chance to see a hiker pass you on the ski lift there's swarms of Pokemon that only appear on routes on random days there's even visual cues for rare higher IV Pokemon now there's rare 1 out of 100 spawns riddled throughout almost every single Pokemon game on tons of routes but one of these rare occurrences had an effect on the player base that outshined all the others literally many Pokemon fans might not know this but if you were to go to the newest game category for Pokemon on Twitch you might be surprised to find that a handful of people are not actually playing sword and shield but instead playing some of the older games and they're shiny hunting welcome to the world of full odds a core group of people who look for shiny Pokemon in old games games were the odds of finding a shiny is one out of eight thousand one hundred and ninety two the ones with no charm to lower your odds without methods or broken chain fishing you see that's exactly what full odds means the lowest possible chance of finding a shiny Pokemon so yes this means running back and forth in the grass for hours upon hours days upon days weeks upon weeks and sometimes months upon months and that's if the Pokemon you want is simply obtainable by running in the grass and no most people don't even shiny hunt these on emulators with speed up they do it in the game that takes 30 seconds for a health bar to drop on real Hardware so yes there's people crazy enough to do this but why well if you've never found a Shiny Pokemon before I encourage you next time you play a Pokemon game to take a few minutes to run around in the grass when you get to a new area let the excitement and Trust of the Pokemon world hold its place in your mind because when you find one for yourself you'll understand why there will probably never be something like this in a video game ever again because of the general shift of video games and marketing strategies Shiny Pokemon are remnants of a bygone era every year a new Pokemon game comes out that cuts down the Rarity of finding a shiny more and more although we don't know where it will all lead we do know where it came from even if the current developers have all but forgotten now I'm not a die-hard full odds only shiny Hunter I enjoy methods with eggs and even 1 out of 20 Pokemon go shinies are a good time but at its core this feeling and this feeling are completely different the sheer Rarity of this moment will stick with you try going back and remembering every single Pokemon go shiny you've found if you've been playing more than a year because I bet if you have at this point you've probably released one of them to make space while on the other hand I went my entire childhood of playing every single main series Pokemon game in order up to Black and White 2 without finding a single shiny all there was was rumors of little Timmy's yellow Rattata at school some say they were too rare but I disagree even with the playground video game rumor era all but entirely gone and the Mystique of these sparkly creatures picked apart and dissected the feeling of getting a Shiny Pokemon still sends you back to second grade in that moment there's no internet no leaks it's just you and the shiny nothing else that moment is to be treasured because there is truly nothing in video game history that quite captures it maybe that's why it's worth the extra effort to find them in the games we played at that point in time [Music] dude shiny Chansey while every inch of our planet has been combed through explored and conquered I think you'd find solace in knowing that even though Pokemon is one of the most popular video games on the planet when it comes to Shiny Pokemon there is still Frontiers to explore f l o y t first Live on YouTube if you see this at the front of any shiny reaction YouTube video it means that this is the first documented case of finding a specific Shiny Pokemon sure someone out there may have randomly found one but in order for the Greater Community to understand a Pokemon can be shiny and how they are huntable the best way is to have video proof and even though the hobby of shiny hunting has dug its way into the absolute core of the Pokemon Community there are still Shiny Pokemon out there that have never been found many for reason some have incredible circumstances built into obtaining them ridiculous amounts of preparation and time but that won't stop the Greater Community from eventually hunting down every single one because that is human nature to conquer the things that are devoid of our immediate grasp no matter the truly daunting circumstances though your life may not be at risk searching for Shiny Pokemon as it would be climbing Mount Everest or exploring uncharted waters in the end the only things in life that matter are the ones we remember everything else gets lost in The Fray the old Pokemon games are intertwined with the idea of experience not only are they designed to truly make every Adventure entirely unique and special but they were in love with the idea of creating valuable moments that the player would treasure genuinely and indefinitely all tied in with the principle of Rarity marketing strategy or not in a world with fleeting feelings of uncertainty and a seemingly endless wave of Crisis and frustration every day it becomes more and more important to realize the little things in life that cling to you and bring you this kind of joy right because after all even genuine feelings of success or excitement after a while start to become distant it's all too easy for video games now to become less of an escape and more of a muddled mess of dopamine Boost after dopamine boost but for some reason no matter who you are if you have found one always remember your first shiny Pokemon [Music] foreign

Channel: BlueBoyPhin

Views: 315,927

Keywords: pokemon, shiny pokemon, pokemon legends, legends arceus, pokemon arceus, pokemon legends arceus, shiny, pokemon analysis, analysis, video essay games, pokemon sword and shield, pokemon cards, emplemon, speedrun, speedrun minecraft, speedrunning pokemon brilliant diamond, speedrunning pokemon fire red, pokemon documentary, shiny hunting legends arceus, rarest pokemon, nintendo switch

Id: YexvdFPWXdY

Length: 17min 27sec (1047 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 31 2022