- This article is about Pocket Monster (Famicom). For other uses, see Pocket Monster.
Pocket Monster is a Famicom/NES platforming game featuring Pikachu. The game appears to have been developed by Gamtec (or ex-Gamtec) staff, and was released in the late 1990s (exact year unknown). The game was most commonly seen on multicarts and "plug & play" systems rather than as a standalone cartridge.
The gameplay engine of Pocket Monster is shared by two other titles, Panda World and Super PoPo's Adventure. Each game has numerous differences in mechanics, though they share the same music and sound effects. It is unknown which came first; it is possible all three games were developed concurrently.
Overview[]
Pocket Monster's gameplay. Note that the background graphics are stolen from Athena and modified.
This is a simple platformer, in which the player controls Pikachu. Compared to many other NES games, the controls are inverted, which means that jumping is done by pressing B, and pressing A while moving in a direction makes Pikachu run, and A on its' own clears every enemy on the screen. It's also possible to stomp on enemies, similarly to Super Mario Bros.. Pikachu can take three hits before losing a life, with the number of hits left represented by a Poké Ball counter on the top left corner of the screen. There are a total of four worlds (Velbt, Woods, Tableland, and Motte) which are split into three levels each, as well as a single-screen boss battle at the end of each. This game has a debug mode enabled by default, allowing the player free movement while paused and to skip to the next level by pressing Select. In some places, the player can fall partway into the ground, although this doesn't have any implications. The music also glitches slightly at certain points.
Ending screen.
The background graphics are mostly ripped and slightly modified from Athena and Adventure Island II. Some of the enemies are also taken from various games, with some of them based on Pokémon. The sound engine was taken from Twin Bee, a game published and developed by Konami, and, while the game has a soundtrack of its' own, all the sound effects are still recognizably from TwinBee - a setup similar to what Super Game and Gamtec used to have. The ending is Pikachu dancing with an "End" message at the top of the screen.
Other Versions[]
Pocket Amethyst[]
Just a simple title screen hack.
Super Pocket Monster[]
An uncommon hack of the game, titled Super Pocket Monster, is only known to exist on a few multicarts (including a 76-in-1 cartridge and certain variants of the "PikaGame" console). Outside of the title screen, the game is effectively identical to the original, though it removes the pause screen debug mode. This is the version of the game known to appear on XB multicarts. Panda World and Super PoPo's Adventure also appear on XB multicarts.
Trivia[]
- The background music, along with sound effects, was later reused in Poke Tetris, a Tetris clone featuring Pikachu and Jigglypuff. Two unused tracks would however be used as level themes in Panda World and Super Popo's Adventure.
- "Velbt" is a misspelling of the word "Veldt" (also spelled "Veld") - a kind of field, usually present in South Africa, that's characteristic for being thinly forested but still having vegetation such as grass, bushes or shrubs.
- The dancing sprite of Pikachu seen in the ending is also used in Puckman Pockimon when there are credits in the machine but only the first player is active. This and the sound engine cues imply that the game's developer might've had some ties with Gamtec.
- A rendition of one of the background music tracks in the game is used in the ending of the unlicensed monochrome Game Boy game Rainbow Prince, which was initially released some time in the early 1990s using the English name The Rainbow and later received a re-release by unlicensed game publisher Gowin in 1993 as Prince Rainbow. This suggests that at least some songs in Pocket Monster were not specifically composed for it. Rainbow Prince is believed to have been developed by people with ties to Gamtec.
- A slightly slowed down version of the same rendition would be used in the Game Boy Color game Binary Monsters II: Adventure of Hell (數碼怪獸 - 地獄大冒険), which was also released by Gowin on January 2000. In the game, this version of the song would be used for transition screens between levels as well as in a few levels themselves.
- Some of the graphics in Pocket Monster are stolen from Athena for the NES.
- The title screen Pikachu in a cap is adapted from the cover of the second English volume of The Electric Tale of Pikachu, an official Pokémon manga. Curiously, the Genesis game Pocket Monster II uses artwork based on the Japanese cover of the same volume.
- For unknown reasons, virtually all copies of Pocket Monster feature unused graphic data from a Super Game multicart menu (featuring large graphics of a game controller and keyboard). A handful of releases lack this data, leaving the area blank.
Gallery[]
Pocket Monster[]
References[]
See also[]
- Pocket Monster (Mega Drive/SNES)
- Pokémon Ruby (Vast Fame)
- Pokémon Diamond and Jade
- Pokémon Mewtwo Strikes Back
- Lei Dian Huang Bi Ka Qiu Chuan Shuo