Pokemon Puzzle League

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Pokémon Puzzle League
(Nintendo 64)

Official Pokemon Puzzle League Website (Flash and Quicktime 4.0 Required)

Nintendo of America's made a Pokemon video game that's been seen nowhere else. It was made in America, so Japanese players have yet to play this game. So what is this game about?

As indicated by the game's title, it's a puzzle game. Basically, lots of different-colored blocks (a different color for a different Gym Leader Badge) rise from the ground. When you match three colors in a row, the blocks will disappear. The main goal is to keep the blocks from reaching the top, just like in any other puzzle game.

There are a bunch of trainers, and they are (since it's American-made, I'll use the American names): Ash, Misty, Brock, Tracey, Ritchie, Gary, Team Rocket (Jessie and James), Lt. Surge, Erika, Sabrina, Koga, Blaine, Giovanni, Lorelei, and Bruno. So if you count Team Rocket as two people, you've got 16 people. You must always play as Ash, though. All the characters are based on the anime versions.

The game's super-addictive. When I rented this game for this review, I spent a good three hours playing without even realizing it. It certainly has the ability to drain all of your free time. I swear Nintendo put crack in this game or something.

The game's really solid. After you turn your system on and get past the start screen, you see a short movie of Ash getting a phone call from Professor Oak and starting a new journey, you're greeted with a Pokemon Stadium 2-like map of different buildings to go to, with the midi of "Pokemon World" playing in the background. There are nine different places to go in "Puzzle Village":

Prof. Oak's Labs: Professor Oak teaches you how to play the game. Who needs instruction books!?

Pokemon Center: Options. Organize your game files, see profiles of every character, Game Options, and Sound Options.

1p Stadium: Fight in a tournament against the various trainers in the game. In Hard Mode, you'll be able to fight Ritchie, Lorelei, Bruno, and Gary.

2p Stadium: A two-player version of the 1p Stadium.

Marathon: an endless game. No real point to this section.

Puzzle University: Play a game vs. Ritchie. You must solve a puzzle in a certain number of moves (from 1 move to 5) to beat each stage.

Mimic Mansion: Copy what Tracey does...kind of like Prof. Oak's Labs, except here you can actually practice what he told you.

Time Zone: A puzzle with a time limit.

Spa Service: My favorite one. Kind of like Tetris Game B, you have to clear all the blocks above a line. This game is very Team Rocket-themed...you must win to "find" Team Rocket, who have a different costume on in each area (In the first one they have on their Viking uniforms from the first movie, then the cheerleading uniforms from the Machisu episode, then their Water Ballerina outfits, then their wedding outfits, etc). Butch and Cassidy show up every now and then with IMPOSSIBLE puzzles, so you're supposed to lose.

There are two puzzle modes, 2D and 3D. The 2D is like a regular puzzle game, but the 3D takes place in a cylinder. You must rotate around because you have many sides to keep track of, not just one flat side.

My major gripe, however, is the music. Since the game's American-made, so is the music. The music is basically made up of 1) the first two American openings, 2) the background music 4Kids made for the TV show, and 3) most of the "Pikachu's Jukebox" songs. Each character is assigned a song: Ash's is "2BA Master," Gary's is "Pokemon World" (the Orange League opening), Team Rocket's is "Team Rocket's Rockin'" (or whatever that song's called), etc. No Japanese songs in this game, no siree. I guess that would require getting the rights from the Japanese composer. But what's even worse is that ALL the music sounds like midi music! ALL OF IT! Shouldn't the Nintendo 64 be able to make much better music? Thirdly, all the music is pre-Johto League stuff, so the game already feels dated.

I suggest renting this game.

Pocket Monsters was not created by me. It was created by Satoshi Tajiri and the crew at TV-Tokyo. Pokemon is (c) Game Freak, Nintendo, 4Kids Productions, Hasbro, Bandai, and a ton of other companies. When you have a popular anime like Pokemon, lots of people own it so it's impossible to list every company who owns a piece of Pokemon. No infringement of copyrights is meant by the creation of the web site. All images were gotten from official websites (Nintendo, TV-Tokyo, etc.) unless otherwise noted (I don't steal images from other sites!).