will not. ;p

Are you pre-ordering your pre-order request?

Um, Mew was given out a while back!

I have Mew and like him!

You cared enough to not only read the article, but also comment on it.

I cared enough to see the headline in my RSS feed and then post mockingly for my own bemusement.

Lay off him, Mr Nimblewick. I heard that bashing Pokemon on the Internet gets you laid.

Pokemon don't come from the stork, after all... They come from balls. Red and white balls.

Actuay (lol), they come from eggs once you put teh pokemanz in the daycare!

In all honesty, you could be telling the truth and I would have no idea. Its just ridiculous enough to be true.

It is a pretty interesting and(I guess) a deep game. The problem is that when people think of pokemon, they automatically think of the cartoon.

I think the biggest issue most people have with Pokemon nowadays is that it NEVER FUCKING CHANGES. There are additional things you can do with the characters but the core gameplay and game flow is identical. This is coming from a guy who collected all 151 in Red and Blue. I took a dive in Diamond after stepping out for ten years and it's very sad to say teh game hasn't changed. I even got to a town and thought to myself "Hmmm, isn't this about where I got the bike in Red?" Sure enough, the Bike was acquired in that town. They make minor changes to the formula to be certain but the game is still very largely unchanged unless you start getting into sidequests stuff like fashion shows or.... stirring.

But the biggest burn to me at least is in the fact the battles still seem extremely lazy. You have static sprites bouncing back and forth for the battles. It's very hard to defend this especially since all Pokemon have animations as they enter battle but once they are in, it's statue time. All birds are especially obnoxious with this. Basically what even Dragon Quest had to give up on the Playstation (ai, lack of animation), Nintendo gets a free pass because it's Pokemon.

One day I may get into it again but several things have to change.

-Party System. Why is the "brand new 2 on 2" battles used so rarely it's barely worth mentioning. You have a team of Pokemon, so where is the team?

-DECENT... FUCKING... STORY... If I have to spent 40+ hours collecting these things, can we at LEAST get a different story? Team Rocket was cut when they were announced along with the Rival system and doing the deed for Oaks. But considering you're facing the exact same story elements in Pokemon Diamond, that's ridiculous. The Pokemon gameplay is fun but I hate grinding away on a 40 hour story that's barely passable as a script to an episode of YuGiOh. I wouldn't mind seeing a Pokemon reboot with an entirely different collection concept behind the story.

-Put some effort back into the character designs. The original 151 were fun and unique. Now we get creatures like Balloons with Jellyfish Tendrils underneath. In the rush to bulk a roster, majority of the new designs are, well, ass.

-Animation. It's 2008 and you have BIG storage capacity on that system. Let's see some animation.

that's just the base storyline though. Pokemon has always had an emphasis on playing with your friends, and now thanks to WFC there's a whole new community aspect to it. Try getting into battling and actually training. The training/breeding/etc. system in diamond and pearl is crazy, and if you know how to work it, you can come up with some pretty impressive teams to battle with. That's where the lasting power of the series comes anymore. I agree that there are some changes that need to be made to the story and base gameplay itself, but at it's core, pokemon has taken strides in the training/collecting/multiplayer aspect and that's where it really shines.

But here's the thing, have those changes really been made or simply moved to the global arena? Since you HAVE to spend time in the single player to get stuff for the multiplayer, that is a HUGE downfall to the game.

I mean, let's put it this way to another unplayable/wasted opportunity. Custom Robo Arena. You HAVE to play the single player to get equipment needed for the multiplayer. But the single player is SOOOOOOOO awful, I couldn't finish it. So I never went to the multiplayer.

I have no problems with RPGs switching to a multiplayer focus. In fact, I encorage it. However, they need to excel at both or just give up that idea. I hate to use WOW as an example but both the single player and multiplayer aspect of that game are equally balanced in refinement. Not so much on the the console RPGs. Same holds true for Neverwinter Nights, etc.

In Pokemon, I feel like it's a test of patience to get to the meat.

In all honesty, there's actually a pretty huge leap when you go from Generation III (Ruby/Sapphire and the Red/Green remakes) to Generation IV (Diamond/Pearl).

Having collected all 150 in Blue (never got a Mew since those Nintendo events were always somewhere I wasn't, and I didn't have my own transportation at the time), and played through to the championship in Ruby, I have to say, when you compare Ruby/Sapphire to Diamond/Pearl, the differences are pretty amazing.

Besides, it's also the small things that make it awesome; like the clown that says "A winner is you!" or the trainer that says "My Pokemon is fight!"

Sweet. As small as Gamestops usually are, I shall stand outside and get my Deoxys. :)

493, which last I checked is well under 9000.

Aww, I love Joystiq. AND you can be sure I will be the latter group and totally celebrate my summer with a trip to my local EB Games to download some pokemanz!

Well, go clean up...