The Hall of Shame 08.08.07: Hey You, Pikachu!
Posted by Vincent Chiucchi on 08.08.2007
I don't remember Tamagotchis ever throwing feces...
I remember the days of when I was a huge Pokemon fan. Playing for hours on end for days on the Pokemon games, playing in Pokemon Card Game tournaments, watching every single episode of Pokemon on television and the movies...I was a Pokefanatic. But then around the year 2001...I suddenly stopped. I don't know what exactly caused me to stop. It's like one day I just stopped caring about the TV show, the card game seemed so childish, and I didn't watch any Pokemon movies after the third one.
But one day, when coming up with the worst possible games to induct, I had the idea of perhaps inducting the worst games from the best series. Looking though the catalog of Pokemon games, I remember how hated "Hey You, Pikachu!" was for being one of the most boring games of all time. That's when it dawned on me.
It was this game, or rather, a specific moment that turned me off from Pokemon.
When Pokemon hit the American market in 1998, it literally became a huge sensation overnight. There was promotions with KFC, Pikachu had a Volkswagen beetle modeled after him, a league was started for the Pokemon card game, the "Pokemon Pikachu" pedometer was a hot toy, and imitators such as Digimon and Monster Rancher came no where close to competing against them. But most of all, the video games were being sold out fast. Even though the games were meant for a younger audience, they were all very well done. Even the spin offs games like Pinball and Snap were critically praised. The streak of good games, however, would come to a crashing halt with the game I'm about to talk about: Hey You, Pikachu!
Hey You, Pikachu was a late 2000 N64 game that was basically a glorified You were to take care of a Pikachu that you talked too using the microphone that came with the game. Pikachu would do stuff based on what you said and you can also go out on "adventures" and meet other Pokemon in the game. But that was the problem right there. Eventually that's all you really wind up doing. Tell Pikachu to do this, go to that place, tell Pikachu to do more stuff, repeat. Everything that needs to be unlocked can be done in about two hours, and there's basically no end until you realize just how damn boring this game is. The voice recognition was also very limited as you can only say about one or two words at a time, and you'll usually be saying the same words over and over again. Seeing how that's supposed to be the main appeal of the game, it's very disappointing and frustrating when Pikachu sometimes decides to not understand a word you're saying. The camera is very awful as it goes too slow and ruins portions of the gameplay, plus for a game that came out in late 2000 (in America), the graphics are awful. So overall, Hey You Pikachu was basically a huge cash-in (the game cost around $80!) for little kiddies.
Of course, since I was still such a big Pokemon game, I still got the game (for Christmas so it cost me nadda) and had fun with it for a while. I didn't think the game was so bad as everyone thought...but then it happened. One day Pikachu was jumping up and down the bed, then suddenly out of nowhere he started throwing these yellow balls with gaseous clouds at me. As I clicked on one of these strange balls, all that came up with "What IS that?" I couldn't understand what Pikachu was doing until I realized...
PIKACHU WAS THROWING HIS FECES AT ME!
Don't be fooled by his innocent looks. This bastard is a poo-flinger!
I am completely serious people. There is a part in the game where Pikachu does throw his poop at you. For those who've never played a Pokemon game before, Pokemon never seem to poop and there is definitely no attack that involves throwing a yellow ball of stink at foes (unless they added it to the Diamond/Pearl versions of the series). Of course the game never said it was poop, but when Pikachu is pulling them out of nowhere and it's got yellow clouds surrounding it, you know it's definitely not something you'd want to see again. Pokemon has always been meant for the younger crowd, so WHY would they do something like this? Imagine the look on an 8-year-old's face when he sees his most beloved Pokemon suddenly starting to throw poop at him. Or worst, imagine if a PARENT is watching this along with the child. I don't think the Arabs will be the only ones trying to ban this series worldwide.
See Pikachu throwing his poop at you...that's the kind of thing that would almost scar a person for life. Sadly, that's what it did to me. That's basically the only thing I truly remember about the game. Amazingly, while trying to find proof of Pikachu doing this deed, the only place that remembered Pikachu committing this deed was an FAQ at GameFAQs. I would assume people were so bored with the game that didn't bother sticking around to see it happen. But I saw it happen, and it haunts me to this day.
Even though I was one of the few to witness Pikachu's poop throwing, I was one of the many that stopped caring entirely for the Pokemon franchise. After the release of HYP, things began to go downhill for Pokemon. In 2001, Pokemon's popularity was starting to wane, and by the end of the year Yu-Gi-Oh had hit the scene and captured a majority of Pokemon's audience, thus lowering Pokemon's status from "Phenomenon" to "Popular." The worldwide craze had come to an end. The TV show basically remained stagnate in the Johto saga for too long to the point Ruby and Sapphire came out during it, thus making it seem pretty pointless to watch. The movies were making less and less money to the point where they went straight to video, and then straight to TV. As for the video games, it seems the streak of good games was also at an end. While the initial games are still liked, the rest aren't so critically acclaimed. Pokemon Ranger, Mystery Dungeon, and Dash all received mediocre to bad scores. But at least the nightmare of a having to be in a room with a feces throwing rodent was over, right?
Wrong. This wouldn't be the last time Pokemon would have a "Babysit Pikachu" game. Nintendo released a successor called "Pokemon Channel", where your Pikachu just sits in front of a TV and sometimes steals your credit card to buy worthless crap. That's it. All you do is look at your Pikachu look at television and you can decorate your room. I mean at least HYP had you talking to that damn thing! I don't really know much about Pokemon Channel, so I'm not sure if Pikachu gets so mad that he starts flinging poop at you, but I wouldn't be surprised if he did.
Pokemon: A worldwide craze that suddenly went downhill and now takes a backseat to Yu-Gi-Oh. All because Pikachu decided to shit on all of us.
