The release of Pokémon X and Y has made catching ’em all a more daunting task than ever before. From Accelgor to Zweilous, the latest batch of Pokémon games brings the franchise up to a total of 718 pocket monsters. This updated Pokérap offers a tongue-in-cheek tribute to the Poké Culture of yore, putting the pure volume of modern Pokémon into perspective. If you can get through all nine minutes of Pokélists, you may have what it takes to become a true Pokémon Master. BONUS: 20 Pokémon GIFs That’ll Make You a Better Friend Lessons Pokemon Can Teach You About Friendship 1. Treat your friend’s accomplishments like they’re your own. When your friend wants to celebrate something big, like a new job or an impressive win against a gen-II Pokemon, get excited with them. You’ll want the same fanfare when it’s your moment, too. Image: Adventuretime.wikia Superxgame 2. Stand up for each other. Someone picking on your best bud? Not on your watch. Let that jerk know you follow the “you mess with one of us, you mess with all of us” mentality. Squirtle’s killer shades help, too. Image: Giphy 3. Friends don’t always tell the truth. Just because they’re your friend doesn’t mean they can lie, hypnotize you or take advantage of your gullibility. Friends should always feel like equals. Image: Tumblr tm64 4. Offer a kind gesture in times of stress. Friendship isn’t all sunshine and daisies, you know. There are going to be days when your BFF loses a fight, and those are the days you need to be waiting with a pat on the back, a tub of ice cream and very large beer to cheer them up. Image: Giphy 5. A little competition can be a good thing. Friends push each other. So when your friend is looking buff after a little extra time at the gym, and is getting more attention when you two go out, channel that jealousy into the motivation you need to step up your game. Image: Giphy 6. Everything is more fun when your bestie is doing it with you. Because let’s face it, you have no idea what’s happening at this sporting event. You guys are just here because you wanted to wear a kimono and carry pom-poms. Image: Giphy 7. Sometimes a boost of confidence is all your friend needs. When your best bud is struggling, sometimes all it takes is an encouraging word from you to make them find their voice and feel better. Image: Giphy 8. Challenge each other. Pikachu clearly doesn’t even lift, bro. But that doesn’t mean that Sandshrew isn’t going to push him to try. Image: Imgur, adiltroll 9. Watch out for each other. Don’t take this one quite as literally as the others, but you see what we’re getting at here. 10. You’re not always going to get along. There’s going to be a day when the two of you will be spitting fire at one another. Don’t worry — every pair […]
The next generation of Pokémon games bring the franchise into a brave, new world: one that enters the third dimension for the first time. When Pokémon X and Y come out around the world on Oct. 12, it will push the franchise forward with help from Nintendo’s powerful 3DS handheld. Pokémon X and Y are the first games in the seven-generation franchise to immerse players in a 3D world; previous titles relied on two-dimensional sprites for worlds, characters and Pokémon. This leap forward for the series and the more powerful 3DS handheld have inspired lots of changes in the new games. To learn more about how Pokémon X and Y took shape during development, Mashable sat down with Junichi Masuda, the director for X/Y. He’s been involved with studio GameFreak since its launch in the mid-90s, first composing music for Pokémon titles, then moving on to direct games. Mashable: What did it take to translate the sprites and two-dimensional art into that 3D world? Masuda: When we first decided to develop on the Nintendo 3DS, we looked at its much-improved rendering power. We always knew we wanted to bring Pokémon into 3D, but we didn’t want to bring it in a traditional realistic sense. We wanted to convey the soft feel of the 2D in previous games. After doing some experimentation, we made that determination that we could get that same feel across in 3D and just went for it. Now that there are hundreds of them available, how much work was it to turn the Pokémon sprites into full 3D characters? Masuda (with input from graphic designer Hironobu Yoshida): It was quite difficult to translate the 2D models, especially with that characteristic style we have in the GameFreak games. That characteristic style was hard to translate. The 2D sprites appear just as you draw them in previous games. That allowed us to make a lot of adjustments to the models even late into the development period. But because of the 3D, we had to have the settings and animations finalized well in advance of previous titles. Also, now that we’re working in 3D, we had to make the settings of each character much more detailed than before. For example, we had to really think about the thickness of something — what a Pokémon’s tail looks like on the inside — in order to create these 3D models. The 2D images have these different thicker lines and thin lines that accentuate different pieces of each character, and getting that translated into 3D was very difficult and took quite a bit of time. How do you design new Pokémon for each game? Masuda: Each time, we have different settings for each game’s regions, and those are based on real-world regions. Getting inspiration for what kind of creatures live in those regions and coming up with ideas for new Pokémon is one of the things we do as graphic designers. We’re also challenging ourselves to come up with things we haven’t done […]
