When most people think of Pokemon games, you probably think of the RPG games for the gameboy, or maybe Pokemon Stadium. What you might not realize is that there is one Pokemon game in particular that you might have forgotten about…and no, we’re not talking about Pokemon Snap.
Pokemon had yet another game that didn’t involve pokemon actually battling each other, not yelling their names all the time, and involved you to actually use your mind. The game was called Pokemon Puzzle League for the Nintendo 64. I knew that this game was going to be interesting since when you start the game up, hit has Japanese voice say “Nintendo” while the pokeball shuts. It was also really cool that the Pokemon team actually made an animated video before the start screen showing Ash and Pikachu sitting at a pool and Professor Oak telling them about the startup of a Pokemon Puzzle League. They even had the actual narrator from the show talking during the scene.
I played this game when I was 10 and I got to tell you guys that this game for somebody in their target age group is challenging. It requires you to actually think. It is exactly like tetris, only they Pokefied it. You had to get at least 3 blocks of the same color lined up and they used the colors and symbols of the type of Pokemon they had. I could only get up to Blaine on Easy as a kid and have recently gone back and downloaded the game on an emulator. I have since beaten the game on hard and it still takes me a little bit. The games end up lasting anywhere from 30 seconds, to 4 minutes depending on what’s going on. The hard difficulty is still a pain in the ass. My last run through of the game on hard, I had to try again a total of 37 times. It sounds like a lot, but unless you have played the game before, you realize that I’m being serious.
Some people in the gaming world have since put this game on their top 10 remake list. Personally, I most definitely agree. It had a 2-player mode since at the time, there was no such thing as online play. Could you imagine playing an intense puzzle game with you and 3 other people on Xbox Live today? It would be freaking awesome. This game is what I consider a hidden gem among pokemon fans, and gamers in general. Sadly, since it was overshadowed by Snap and the Pokemon Stadium games, it belongs here in the Gaming Graveyard.
