You’ll start playing Pokémon Pearl and, after a few hours of screen-gazing and button pressing, you may come to an embarrassing conclusion - you haven’t been trying to catch and collect Pokémon, but by playing for hours without realising, you yourself have just been caught. Again! You may have wilfully injected your time into the game and probably enjoyed it, but at some point the thought may cross your mind that, maybe, “Gotta’ Catch ‘Em All”, the slogan synonymous with the franchise, is actually a punch line known only to the developers of the game - a punch line to a very sinister joke indeed.

Maybe you’ve played a Pokemon title before, one of the numerous iterations of the series started in the early nineties on the Game Boy, and this scenario is all too familiar. Or maybe you’ve never played one, refuting the evidence that grown-ups, with great delight, play the games as well and, while brushing the phenomenon aside, you refocus your attention on the latest, grime-smeared action shooter. That’s a very wide brush, but maybe you think that ‘Pokémon isn’t for you’. After playing for a few hours with mesmerised attention, you may just have to rethink your position on this whole Pokémon thing.

For the uninformed, the basic concept is that you’re a Pokémon Trainer (with an uppercase ‘T’), just setting out on your journey into a new, adventurous world. You’re given a choice of three Pokémon, strange creatures each with their own abilities, and off you go, trying to collect more of these wonderful animals, battling with other Pokémon Trainers, teaching new moves to your Pokémon as well as growing (or levelling) them in order for them to become more powerful, or even evolve into new types of Pokémon. A typical Pokémon game usually involves a story of personal growth and development while fighting for good and doing ‘The Right Thing’… and so an entire series has been built, culminating in the latest release with the same formula, Pokémon Pearl and Pokémon Diamond.

There’s nothing innately wrong with Pokémon Pearl, or the formula. If you dissect it into its root parts, you’ll discover that the graphics, while achievable on machines from the early nineties, are detailed, cute and service the game well. The sound and music components are just as well-placed, with the music falling into the background when it needs to and coming to the forefront when required, although the sound effects, at times, will remind you of early attempts at audio from the eighties.

The game always moves along at a steady clip, so you’re never at a loss of what to do, and you always feel as though minute-to-minute gameplay decisions are in your hands due to a satisfactory control method. The story as well, while cute and predictable, provides just enough motivation for you to start the next play session. The central theme of catching Pokémon, growing stronger, going on an adventure and generally saving the day is conveyed very well, constantly enforcing your actions and making progression all the more satisfying.

What all of this means is that Pokémon’s scope is expertly handled - you’re given just the right amount of tools to progress in your journey and enjoy the challenges presented to you, while you’re never informed that the game could have been extended in one direction or another and the developers never allude to actions that you wish you could perform, but can’t. As linear as the story and progression may be, you’re always given lots of interesting decisions along the way to make it seem as though you’re the one in charge of your adventure.

One concrete criticism that could be levelled against Pokémon Pearl is that the towns and cities you’ll encounter beg for exploration only because you *feel* you need to, and not because you really have to. This is a good thing and a bad thing, because, while it’s never forced on you and you don’t feel as though you just have to grind through the town looking for clues and hints, it does detract from the experience when most of the townspeople have only useless one-liners to hand out. There could have been more little quests along the way, but that would have needed to be measured with the collection aspect, so you wouldn’t feel overwhelmed. Still, a bit of a missed opportunity.

What may strike you as a little bit weird, or even amusing, is just how alike Pokémon Pearl and a traditional Japanese RPG (JRPG) are. You’ll be battling other Pokémon trainers, levelling your own Pokémon, equipping them with items, learning new moves, going on quests, having chance encounters with ‘The Bad Guys’, moving from town to town chatting with the locals and even participating in battles with multiple opponents at once. While these elements do not a JRPG make, if you’ve ever played one, you’ll be reminded how Pokémon could have had its characters replaced with moody, Emo teenagers, battling against an evil corporation, and you may not have noticed the difference - but this is just a cynical mind speaking.

Pokémon Pearl isn’t a perfect game in the Triple-A sense of the word, but what it does, it does to the best of its ability and keeps you entertained, while the collection aspect will have you fighting your OCD urges. Learning the further intricacies of battling other Pokémon will instil a sense of challenge and, in that way, Pokémon Pearl’s multiple risk-reward decisions, from deciding which Pokémon to use in which situation to choosing which path you’ll take to the next town, will keep you playing for hours until, finally, you get the joke - Nintendo have caught us all.

Pros: Addictive collect-em-up; good, cute graphics; feeling of progression continuously enforced

Cons: Sound effects can be a little dated; towns and cities not used to their potential

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