~~ the following is a piece I did for the 2013-14 school year of "The Ram Pride," Ringgold High School's school newspaper ~~
Nearly every American
has heard of the Japan-originated franchise Pokemon,
centered around young adventurers and sportsmen collecting, training, and
living amongst creatures known as Pokemon. The franchise encompasses cartoons
and comics, but it got its start with video games on the Gameboy back in the
90s. There is a myriad of spin-off video games, but it is the main series that
fans latch onto the most. Each entry in the main series of video games releases
in twos, each version only slightly different than the other, and then usually
not too long after this simultaneous release there is yet another slightly
different version of the game put out. Different releases are organized by “generations;”
the latest to start is “Gen VI,” with Pokemon
X and Pokemon Y for the Nintendo
3DS. The game has done well financially and it has also pleased both fans and
critics.
The first three
generations of Pokemon have entirely
what is referred to as sprite or pixel-based graphics. This retro style is
essentially a collection of two-dimensional, small dots, put together and
animated to create visuals. Throughout these generations, these pixel-based
graphics have gotten more intricate. Starting with the fourth generation back
in 2007, polygon-based graphics were implemented alongside the sprites.
Polygonal graphics is a three-dimensional form of visuals. The most easily
recognizable difference with the newest generation is its complete usage of
polygonal graphics, which forgoes old-school style pixel graphics.
Over four
million copies of Pokemon X and Y (combined) worldwide in the first two
days of release, according to Nintendo. Metacritic, a website that indexes professional video game
reviews, has averaged out Pokemon X and
Y’s critic score to an 87%, with 61
“positive” reviews and 4 “mixed” reviews. RHS Senior Aaron Turkovich has been a
player of Pokemon video games since
he “was… 8, maybe 9.” He bought the latest game, choosing the Y version, and says the series “just
keeps getting better.”
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