Post by Axalon on May 12, 2014 17:52:28 GMT -5
New Intro:
***Originally proposed by me on HTL February 13, 2013, the Pokemon Theory is my own amusing parody of all the numerous ending theories that sprang up after the release of Mass Effect 3. The theory has now been transferred to Enthusiacs, but updated with a few different and more relevant images. I hope you have as much fun reading this as I did making it up as I went along!***
Gotta Catch 'Em All.
This motto once caused children to go into a collecting frenzy in the early years of Pocket Monsters, commonly known and referred to as Pokemon.
While the franchise is large and encompasses things such as toys, video games, anime and trading cards, we will be mostly focusing on the video games, for the explicit purpose of comparing them to another video game: Mass Effect 3.
Those familiar with the game's infamous ending(s) know that the final choice is this tale spanning over a hundred hours essentially boiled down to picking a color. Red, Blue or Green. Due to the lackluster nature of this choice as well as the jarring appearance of a new villain literally within the last five minutes of the narrative, this has led many to cry foul at the ending of ME3.
Yet for some, the colors struck a chord. A chord not played upon since childhood. I am of course referring back to the Pokemon games. This has led to the question:
"How much influence has Pokemon had on Mass Effect 3?"
Memes have already been created, such as:
I had toyed with this idea for a while, but this being the Age of the Internet, wasn't surprised to see that others have had similar thoughts regarding the relationship between ME3 and Pokemon.
But let's dig deeper than the ending. Let's look at all of Mass Effect 3, and see just how much coincides with the plot of your standard Pokemon game, starting with collecting things.
In Pokemon, having more of the adorable little monsters than can level cities makes you more powerful as a character. The more diverse a team you have, the better your chances are of victory in your quest to be a Pokemon master.
In Mass Effect 3, the goal is to gather and collect as many war assets as you can toward the completion of one goal, constructing the Crucible. How many you gather impacts how successful the Crucible will be. The more you have, the better your odds of success.
To continue off of this point, let's take a look at this character selection screen:
Six. Six characters (not including DLC character Javik). An odd coincidence then that the maximum amount of monsters you're allowed to carry in your pocket...is SIX!
Naturally you can have more (in the PC), but this is the limit. Since DLC is optional, clearly six squadmates is a direct parallel to being handicapped to only having six Pokemon.
The similarities don't end there. Every Pokemon game has some kind of "Team" a gang of unscrupulous individuals out to achieve a particular goal, and damn anyone who gets in the way. There are many teams within the Pokemon universe, but we'll be sticking with Pokemon classic Team Rocket:
Team Rocket in the games consists of literally a bunch of mooks. Most of them don't even have names, just ranks. Team Rocket Grunts for instance, form the backbone of the Rocket army. Team Rocket will try to hinder the player at various points in the game, even when local gym leaders could probably take care of the problem on their own, it ends up being up to the player to rid the world of the Rocket threat.
The same is true of Mass Effect 3. In ME3 we're given pro-human terrorist group Cerberus as adversaries. Like Team Rocket, Cerberus consists of mostly a bunch of mooks with no names, only ranks. Much like Team Rocket, they seem to be evil villains for the sake of being evil villains. Cerberus also seems to have access to nigh-unlimited amounts of wealth, just like Team Rocket. They will also always be in your way for the majority of the game, just like Team Rocket. They also limit their color palette to mostly white, black, or some combination of the two.
Just like Team Rocket.
But Team Rocket isn't always faceless, oh no. On occasion Team Rocket has a mook (or mooks) that stick out. This wasn't used in the games up until the special Yellow edition, but was used fairly early on the in anime. The anime gave us a trio of whom Wile E. Coyote would be proud. The Team Rocket trio.
Unlike the majority of Team Rocket, these people actually have names. So you know they're hot stuff.
Jesse, James and Meowth would be the bane of Ash Ketchum for many an episode throughout the years. These three are notable in that they try very hard to be taken seriously, but mostly come off as silly and annoying. An irritation that just happens to be in the right place at the right time if you will. They also have a habit of sending irritating messages to their archnemesis.
Fear not fellow Pokemon Theorist, Cerberus does not disappoint. Meet Cerberus lackey Kai Leng:
Much like the Rocket Trio, Kai Leng will start showing up at inopportune times to try and trip you up. Much like the Rocket Trio, he will send you an annoying message filled with empty boasts. Kai Leng is unique though because he is actually a blend of another popular Pokemon concept, which we will get to momentarily. First we must finish our Team Rocket/Cerberus comparison.
Having already established the Mook Army employed by both, and their penchant desire to get in the way of the player, seemingly unlimited money as well as their similar color scheme and named mooks, what else could there be?
Well, scientific experiments for one. Both Team Rocket and Cerberus find themselves getting involved in some...unscrupulous science experiments to say the least. And, as is standard practice with evil organizations, said science experiments end up going horribly wrong.
Continued in Part 2
***Originally proposed by me on HTL February 13, 2013, the Pokemon Theory is my own amusing parody of all the numerous ending theories that sprang up after the release of Mass Effect 3. The theory has now been transferred to Enthusiacs, but updated with a few different and more relevant images. I hope you have as much fun reading this as I did making it up as I went along!***
Gotta Catch 'Em All.
This motto once caused children to go into a collecting frenzy in the early years of Pocket Monsters, commonly known and referred to as Pokemon.
While the franchise is large and encompasses things such as toys, video games, anime and trading cards, we will be mostly focusing on the video games, for the explicit purpose of comparing them to another video game: Mass Effect 3.
Those familiar with the game's infamous ending(s) know that the final choice is this tale spanning over a hundred hours essentially boiled down to picking a color. Red, Blue or Green. Due to the lackluster nature of this choice as well as the jarring appearance of a new villain literally within the last five minutes of the narrative, this has led many to cry foul at the ending of ME3.
Yet for some, the colors struck a chord. A chord not played upon since childhood. I am of course referring back to the Pokemon games. This has led to the question:
"How much influence has Pokemon had on Mass Effect 3?"
Memes have already been created, such as:
I had toyed with this idea for a while, but this being the Age of the Internet, wasn't surprised to see that others have had similar thoughts regarding the relationship between ME3 and Pokemon.
But let's dig deeper than the ending. Let's look at all of Mass Effect 3, and see just how much coincides with the plot of your standard Pokemon game, starting with collecting things.
In Pokemon, having more of the adorable little monsters than can level cities makes you more powerful as a character. The more diverse a team you have, the better your chances are of victory in your quest to be a Pokemon master.
In Mass Effect 3, the goal is to gather and collect as many war assets as you can toward the completion of one goal, constructing the Crucible. How many you gather impacts how successful the Crucible will be. The more you have, the better your odds of success.
To continue off of this point, let's take a look at this character selection screen:
Six. Six characters (not including DLC character Javik). An odd coincidence then that the maximum amount of monsters you're allowed to carry in your pocket...is SIX!
Naturally you can have more (in the PC), but this is the limit. Since DLC is optional, clearly six squadmates is a direct parallel to being handicapped to only having six Pokemon.
The similarities don't end there. Every Pokemon game has some kind of "Team" a gang of unscrupulous individuals out to achieve a particular goal, and damn anyone who gets in the way. There are many teams within the Pokemon universe, but we'll be sticking with Pokemon classic Team Rocket:
Team Rocket in the games consists of literally a bunch of mooks. Most of them don't even have names, just ranks. Team Rocket Grunts for instance, form the backbone of the Rocket army. Team Rocket will try to hinder the player at various points in the game, even when local gym leaders could probably take care of the problem on their own, it ends up being up to the player to rid the world of the Rocket threat.
The same is true of Mass Effect 3. In ME3 we're given pro-human terrorist group Cerberus as adversaries. Like Team Rocket, Cerberus consists of mostly a bunch of mooks with no names, only ranks. Much like Team Rocket, they seem to be evil villains for the sake of being evil villains. Cerberus also seems to have access to nigh-unlimited amounts of wealth, just like Team Rocket. They will also always be in your way for the majority of the game, just like Team Rocket. They also limit their color palette to mostly white, black, or some combination of the two.
Just like Team Rocket.
But Team Rocket isn't always faceless, oh no. On occasion Team Rocket has a mook (or mooks) that stick out. This wasn't used in the games up until the special Yellow edition, but was used fairly early on the in anime. The anime gave us a trio of whom Wile E. Coyote would be proud. The Team Rocket trio.
Unlike the majority of Team Rocket, these people actually have names. So you know they're hot stuff.
Jesse, James and Meowth would be the bane of Ash Ketchum for many an episode throughout the years. These three are notable in that they try very hard to be taken seriously, but mostly come off as silly and annoying. An irritation that just happens to be in the right place at the right time if you will. They also have a habit of sending irritating messages to their archnemesis.
Fear not fellow Pokemon Theorist, Cerberus does not disappoint. Meet Cerberus lackey Kai Leng:
Much like the Rocket Trio, Kai Leng will start showing up at inopportune times to try and trip you up. Much like the Rocket Trio, he will send you an annoying message filled with empty boasts. Kai Leng is unique though because he is actually a blend of another popular Pokemon concept, which we will get to momentarily. First we must finish our Team Rocket/Cerberus comparison.
Having already established the Mook Army employed by both, and their penchant desire to get in the way of the player, seemingly unlimited money as well as their similar color scheme and named mooks, what else could there be?
Well, scientific experiments for one. Both Team Rocket and Cerberus find themselves getting involved in some...unscrupulous science experiments to say the least. And, as is standard practice with evil organizations, said science experiments end up going horribly wrong.
Continued in Part 2
