Pokemon Channel: Change The Channel!

It seemed like only yesterday that the Pokemon juggernaut captured hearts and wallets everywhere. In addition to the television show, there were numerous video games, movies, dolls, clothing and even breakfast cereal. Perhaps the breakfast cereal was the death knell for the franchise; after all, who else remembers Urkel-Os? While the Pokemon franchise certainly hasn’t become as obscure a reference as the once ubiquitous Steve Urkel, it has had to step aside and make room for new franchises like Yu-Gi-Oh! and Beyblade. Perhaps this is why Pokemon Channel was able to arrive in stores a couple years ago with little or no fanfare.

Pokemon Channel is vaguely reminiscent of the Nintendo 64 game Hey You Pikachu!, but without the annoying voice command component. It is also like Animal Crossing in that the player must interact with other characters in order to collect various items, and gameplay takes place in real time. Pokemon Channel is a very superficial game, but as we have learned from the supermarket, fluff is not always a bad thing.

The premise is fairly simple; the player assumes the role of a young Pokemaniac who befriends a wild Pikachu who has taken a vested interest in the television set in the player’s in-game bedroom. The game presents itself in a first-person view, which leads to an actual sense of realism if the player is willing to suspend all disbelief. The aforementioned television set plays a pivotal role in the game and the player must watch certain programs in order to access new programs and progress in the game. These programs include game shows in which the player will have to identify Pokemon from their silhouettes, to news shows, to portions of cartoons. One of the most important programs is the shopping channel which allows the player to spend money they have earned elsewhere in the game on Pokemon merchandise (dolls, trading cards, etc) and bus passes. That’s right. Bus passes.

The centerpiece of the television programs is a Pichu Brothers animation short. The player also receives an art program that allows him/her to capture a still image from the cartoon and turn that image into a coloring page. The player then uses a painting program to color in the picture. The finished product can be displayed on the bedroom wall and, when a new painting is completed, the old painting can be sold for some quick cash. Another activity the player can do in the bedroom is play mini-games on the Pokemon Mini. This is a nice diversion, but it is not a substantial addition to the game.

While watching television programs takes up a good portion of the game, the player must also get up and accost wild Pokemon on the street. This is achieved by asking Pikachu to interact with them and they will respond by asking the player a Pokemon-related trivia question. The question will always be about the physiology or behavioral patterns of the Pokemon to whom the player is speaking. If the player answers the trivia question correctly, then the wild Pokemon will present the player with a collectable card of itself. If the player answers incorrectly, then s/he will have to wait until the following day to try again. This can be very annoying, given that the real-time aspect means that another attempt cannot be made until the real tomorrow, not some fictional in-game “tomorrow.” Since the player tends to encounter the same Pokemon wherever s/he goes (i.e. Bulbasaur and Hitmonlee will always be hanging out by the bus stop), the player can continue to interact with the Pokemon and answer the trivia questions an unlimited amount of subsequent times, but instead of winning additional trading cards, the player wins a nominal amount of money. By using the bus passes purchased from the shopping channel, the player can venture away from his/her house to new areas of the game (forest, beach, snowy mountains) where new and exciting Pokemon can be accosted.

There’s really not that much more to do aside from collecting cards from Pokemon and watching television. There is a very small aspect of gameplay that involves befriending Pikachu, but that seems to occur automatically and doesn’t take much effort from the player. Pikachu will show an unusual interest in the television set and will ask the player to teach it to operate the television. I must admit that I am sorry I taught Pikachu how to push the channel buttons because he would push them at the most inopportune times, thus purchasing things that I did not want to purchase or flipping the channels right before I was about to purchase something. Hey you, Pikachu! Stop that already!

The game operates on a point and click interface. The player uses the controller to move a pointer around the room, and when s/he wants to get Pikachu’s attention, s/he must move the pointer over an object and hit “A”. This system is fairly easy to pick up and I only have one minor complaint. If the player is watching television and a package is delivered (this is actually a very common occurrence), in order to turn one’s focus away from the television, the player must position the cursor over the television set and push "B" in order to move back. Instinctually, when I hear a delivery being made, my first reaction is to turn towards the source of the noise and then attempt to press "B" to move back. It was very annoying that the cursor had to actually be directly over the television in order to move away from the television.

There are some fundamental problems with this game that need to be addressed. To begin with, while I do realize that there are adult fans of Pokemon, the target audience is children. The game is very reading intensive at times, so children who wish to play this game should be good readers. Also, the trivia questions can be very difficult; players of all ages really have to almost memorize their Pokedexes if they want to be consistently successful. I’ve played all of the Pokemon games on the Game Boy and GBA and I still had to guess the answers to most of the questions. Granted, I could use logic to guess that the soles of Hitmonlee’s feet harden instead of soften when it kicks an opponent, but children don’t always use logic. My point is that if your child is a full-fledged Pokemaniac who can cite bucketloads of factoids about Pokemon physiology, then chances are s/he won’t have any trouble with the trivia questions, but other children who are only casual fans of the franchise will likely get frustrated by the occasionally difficult questions.

The second problem is the television watching aspect of the game. While the vast majority of the programs are entertaining, several of them are ridiculous and it is rather inconvenient to have to watch the entire program in order to access new programs. One of these programs involved watching a flock of Mareep (electric sheep) jump over a fence, and another program featured Slowpoke (a Pokemon who takes his sweet time doing just about everything) giving a weather report. While neither of these programs took a particularly long time to watch, they were both extremely boring.

This would not have been a problem if the “Report” system was anything more than a fancy name for the save system. Professor Oak, the long-time pedestal of the Pokemon research community, informs the player that s/he will have to file reports about the programs that s/he watches. This would have been an excellent opportunity to allow the player to actually offer input on the programming by rating it on a 1-5 scale and to base new programming on the reports the player gave. Instead, the player files a “report” by pushing a button and then Professor Oak offers a canned response and the game is saved. I would have been a lot happier if I was able to offer my opinion on the boring programs and if my opinion actually resulted in better programming.

Graphically, the game is decidedly average and I was neither impressed or unimpressed by the visual presentation. The television programs, particularly the cartoon clips, are crisp and clean for the most part, but that is because they are pre-rendered. Also, some of the television programs have a 3D sense of awkwardness vaguely reminiscent of The Simpsons: Hit and Run. The environments in the game world do not tend to suffer from this problem; the Pokemon one encounters in the vast overworld are surprisingly non-blocky.

I wish that I could say the same about the sound effects, but unfortunately, there were times when I was most unimpressed with the sound. The background music is non-offensive and jaunty and the Pokemon one encounters will make their respective calls when they are spoken to. However, the sound effects, specifically in the paint program, were over the top. Every time I switched from the crayon to the paint bucket or attempted to switch colors, I was greeted with an annoying cartoon-esque sound effect. This got very old very quickly. I know that this is a kid’s game, but the annoying sound effects could drive a person to do desperate things.

The bottom line is that Pokemon Channel is a game that already has a limited target audience and it is further restricted by its one-dimensional gameplay. Aside from some minor problems, there is nothing wrong with the gameplay, but there is just not enough of what is offered to justify a purchase. A player can easily complete all of the necessary tasks in a rental period and, unless you intend to purchase this for a child, I strongly recommend that you rent this game.