*WARNING! EXPLICIT LANGUAGE!*
I don't watch much television compared to the amount I spend playing 360 or surfing the internet, but the times that I do watch television are pretty enjoyable. However, whenever there are parts of games that have you watch fake television shows and news broadcasts, I tend to skip them. My theory is the only time a video game should ever resemble television is when it is explaining narrative through computer-generated or live-action cutscenes.
But, apparently, some nitwit at The Pokemon Company came up with a really stupid idea. "Hey guys! I've got an idea! Let's make a game about you watching a pokemon watch television! Kids will love it!"
And thus we got Pokemon Channel. A game that took the boring TV sections of video games and smash it up into an incoherent mess with Pikachu slapped on the front. Y'know, because EVERYTHING sells better with Pikachu. I'll be quite honest with you, I'd probably have just about as much fun as I had with this game (if not more fun) if I duct taped my dachshund's front foot to our television remote and have him walk around on it for about twelve hours. At least then I wouldn't be stuck with the same 16 or so channels to watch for five hours.
While this game isn't Superman 64 terrible, it certainly doesn't deserve any honors for having the ABSOLUTE STUPIDEST PREMISE OF ANY GAME I HAVE EVER COME TO IMAGINE. Why would anybody purchase a game to watch what they could be watching if they simply pressed the "Input" button on their TV remote?
But I digress... This wouldn't be a review if I didn't actually talk about the game, so here's my flashback review of Pokemon Channel.
Before I start my extremely long, painful rant, I'd like to say that this game has you wait 6 full days to complete the game fully, so I'll be doing this review like a documentary or something. Just warning you ahead of time.
Day 1 - I am greeted with an opening sequence of a bunch of Magnemite lifting a television set into my house. Once the installation of my TV set was complete (which, mind you, took less than 2 seconds), I was greeted by a familiar face: Professor Oak. He tells me that the new broadcast system is working correctly, promptly thanks me for taking part in the testing of the broadcast system, and hands me a journal to keep track of my progress.
Then I'm greeted with the anime mini-series The Pichu Bros in Party Panic! Now, I don't watch much of the Pokemon anime anymore, but I definitely didn't find anything particularly interesting about this show. And get this: the entire game revolves around you watching these shows. If that's the case, why couldn't you put this as a bonus on one of the millions of Pokemon movies you made instead of shoe-horning it into a barely-played video game? Granted, it would've gotten lost in the sea of Pokemon shorts, but hey, there's really no point in making an entire game out of it.
After the show, Professor Oak asks me if I liked it (and, of course, I don't get to respond, so he deliberately assumes that I liked it). Before he can get about 3 more paragraphs of dialogue, though, I hear the sound of wild Pokemon at my back porch. I go to inspect the porch, and I see a Pikachu, standing with a Treecko, Mudkip, and a Torchic. When I open the door, the Treecko, Mudkip, and Torchic immediately panic and run away, but for some reason the Pikachu decides to stay. Unfortunately, there is no option to slam the door shut and hide under my bed and pretend this is all a dream, so the Pikachu decides to walk right into my house.
Now, in the real world, if I saw a deer, a raccoon, a skunk, and a moose standing outside my back door, and the deer, moose, and skunk run away when I open the door, but the raccoon stays, I'd probably SHUT THE FUCKING DOOR. I mean, come on, ain't I supposed to be beta testing this broadcast system by myself? Where did it say in the manual that I needed an electric mouse to help me?
Well, being the dumb shit that he is, Professor Oak, instead of telling me to poke it back outside my house with the nearest broomstick, decides that I should watch television with the Pikachu.
Who in the holy mother of potato salad would think it is a good idea to start watching television with a wild fucking animal?!? I can understand this is Pokemon, and that it's Pikachu, but you don't see me inviting random cats inside my household to watch Baywatch every Thursday.
Well, whatever. After Oak feeds me more dialogue, I'm left with Pikachu. Immediately, the first thing I do is get up and start walking around. I then notice the screen door that I used to bring Pikachu into my household. I try to go outside, but then the little fucker comes up and says he'd rather watch TV. I pick the 'X' option (which, I assume, means no), but Pikachu just gets mad and shuts the screen door.
Seriously, this guy is a dumbass. He can't even walk out his front doorstep without some tiny-ass mouse (who, may I add, is about one-fourth your goddamn height) blocking his way. I would've shoved the little shit out of my way and walked right past him. So, basically, it's the game's attempt at border patrol. There's no way out until you finally get down and watch all of the painfully stupid shows.
Which brings me to the game's selling point: the TV shows. At the start, you only have about 6 channels to access: Smoochum Shape-Up (which is pointless), Quiz Wobbuffet (which is a painfully easy quiz show where you get most of your money from), Pokemon News Flash (which is pretty funny, but again, pointless), Prof. Oak Report (the game's save feature), Shop 'N Squirtle (basically how you earn most of the game's pointless shit), and the first episode of Pichu Bros. (and God knows you don't want to watch that again). After watching all of these programs and saving, Professor Oak tells me that I have filled my status quota for the day, and that 'new programs will be on air tomorrow.'
By the way, this game has a day cycle. After you watch all of the TV shows and talk to Professor Oak, you have to literally wait until tomorrow to watch new programs. Of course, there is a way to cheat this by changing the time on the Gamecube's internal clock, so that's what many players did. But I'll get to tomorrow's programs later.
Professor Oak also telepathetically hands us a Smeargle 2, which can be used to paint pictures in episodes of the Pichu Bros., but God only knows I'm not going to do that.
Seconds later, Pikachu destroys my television for no reason.
At that point, I was like "Fuck it. That's game over. No more television, can't watch shows, we're done here. I'm gonna go get a dri-" Only then did my eyes catch ANOTHER TV being sent into my household. Fuck.
This TV is a lot crappier, since it's in black and white, but it'll have to do for the time being. Professor Oak then lets me save my game, I punish Pikachu by forcing him to kick my Ditto cushion around for 2 hours, and I find an old Pokemon Mini stored in a box under my bed. Unfortunately, the only game I have for it is Snorlax's Lunchtime or something of the sort. It gets boring fast, and I figure I'm the only bonehead who's achieving all of the high scores, so I decide to stop playing with it.
Anyways, Pikachu now, for some reason, lets me wander around outside. When I get outside, I immediately see a bunch of pokemon in my front yard. I point my cursor onto one of them and press A. Pikachu then greets the Pokemon, and then the Pokemon gives me a trivia question. I miraculously get it right and I receive a 'Nice Card' for my troubles.
Now, picture if you will, me standing in my front yard and walking up to a squirrel. My dog runs over and barks at it, and it asks me how many nuts on average a squirrel stores in his hiding place. Out of three choices, I pick the correct one, and he hands me his ID which makes a noise every time I twist it back and forth.
Doesn't exactly seem ordinary, does it?
Anyways, after getting everyone's 'Nice Card,' I spot a banana in a basket. I tell Pikachu to pick it up and eat it. He follows orders. He then throws the peel behind him. I figure I could actually have a little fun, so I point to the peel and click on it. Pikachu walks up to it, slips on it, and faceplants on the ground. I immediately shot up with laughter at how stupid Pikachu was to be fooled so easily. Sadly, I think that was the most enjoyable part of this game for me.
I then head to Springleaf Field. Unsurprisingly, there's more Pokemon, and not much else. I did find a hole with a beach ball in it for some reason, but the only thing it allowed me to do with it was play catch with Pikachu, and that was pretty boring as well.
I'll save the rest of the areas for the later parts of my review, but for now, I decided to time-skip to Day 2.
Day 2 - Once again, my player companion decides to let Pikachu inside of my household. My old TV arrived fresh and repaired, so now I decided to watch the other new channels for today.
Smeargle's Art Study - I'll admit. Smeargle scares the shit out of me in this game. It's just the way he freaking looks at the camera. He truly is serious about art. Anyways, he rants on about how my portrait of Pichu's ass is dignifying and amazing, The funny thing about this show is that Smeargle has absolutely nothing bad to say about your pictures, whether they be magnificent or just plain made of suck. I literally kept the show on for 1 full hour and he did not say anything negative about my horrible drawing of a stickman.
Slowpoke's Weather Report - A pink hippo walks around in front of a sign in Godknowswhereville and eventually stops. Whatever picture his tail points at changes the weather (or, in some cases, doesn't do anything). The sad thing is this is probably the channel you'll use most often to get 100% completion, since the Pokemon in a certain area only show up when certain weather appears, like Duskull appearing at night in Springleaf Field and Lapras appearing on rainy days at Cobalt Cove.
Pichu Bros Episode 2 - Yes, it IS required for you to watch every single episode of this mini-series in order to beat the game. I'll just throw that out there. In this episode, the gang tries to find out what the heck is up with the banana-shaped papers are. Later, they find a secret stash of food and get kicked out of a warehouse. Yay.
After lolligagging around and buying some bus passes, TVs and posters, I decide to go outside and catch the bus to Viridian Forest (of course, chatting and answering trivia with the pokemon on my front doorstep). Viridian Forest is a small area set in, well, where else, a forest. I get some more Nice Cards, force Pikachu to eat a foul-tasting mushroom, and watch a small rendition of the 'Ad Theme' for Pokemon Channel. Later, I came back at night and went to Camp Starlight, which serves no purpose other than to get Nice Cards from Torchic, Treecko, Chikorita, and another random Pokemon like Teddiursa.
I also saw a Magnemite holding a camera, who I clicked on out of interest. He then decided to film my Pikachu dancing around with a Bellsprout and a Butterfree. After that, I decided to head home and check out PNF to see how Pikachu looked on TV. Unfortunately, it wasn't as exciting as I'd hoped. Sure, Pikachu found it cool that he was on TV, but the segment itself was pretty dull. Psyduck falling asleep cheered me up, though.
Anyways, time skip.
Day 3 - Amidst my forcing of Pikachu to eat flowers and slip on banana peels, he decides to take refuge in my cupboard. He wakes up and is shocked to see that I caught him napping in my house, but I'm nice enough not to slit his throat. Anyways, Oak calls me up and says I must begin watching every new program today. So I get started.
Eggzamination - You get it? Egg? Examination? EGGS-AMINATION?!? Okay whatever. This channel is basically watching an egg for 3 hours and based on the color of the egg or the sounds it makes, you're supposed to guess what Pokemon will hatch from it. My favorite part about this show is the useless trivia that scrolls along at the top of the page. Oddly enough, some of the trivia you see up there is Nice Card trivia for some pokemon.
Fortune Channel - This was a rather boring one. I picked a random fortune out of six fortune cookies and Chansey tells me I "am reading a fortune. Sorry about the lack of effort." That was well worth it.
Pichu Bros. Episode 3 - By this episode, they're all chasing after a single paper invitation. Unsurprisingly, the Pichus are the ones that obtain it. They also get chased by a Houndour, which later gets crushed by a Snorlax. Yay cartoon violence!
I decide to head for Snowfall Mountain today, so I buy the pass, get on the bus, and head away. Most of the time in games that I play, I usually expect the snow levels to be the most fun levels. This one was the shortest of the three I visited so far because I could only go to one area. The only productive thing I did was find a few nice cards and watch a pretty pathetic concert with Kecleon and Jigglypuff. And Kecleon didn't even do anything. By the way, his Nice Card is a bitch to get because it involves mailing a letter or some stupid shit like that.
I should also mention that some of my stuff was dropped off by Delibird. I got a Poke Ball TV, a new gray backdrop for my bedroom, a bigger binder, some nice cards, and a Snorlax doll. This one is particularly my favorite, because if you click on it. Pikachu falls asleep, which pretty much allows me to watch whatever I want (by now, Pikachu's been messing with the TV buttons, so that gets in the way of my Wobbuffet Quiz time).
Oak also gave me the ability to name Pikachu. Naturally, I named it 'Little Turd,' since, as the name implies, he's pretty much a jackass who bursts into my house and plays with my stuff.
Day 4 - Today some more Pokemon decided to show up. They wanted a peek at my Magikarp doll, and since I wasn't really using it for anything, I decided to let them have it. Little Turd got very happy when I did this, but at this point I hardly gave a rat's ass about what he wants. Anyways, more channels today, and this time we get three. Woohoo.
Mareep Farm - Do you want to see the most pointless feature in any video game ever made? Fear not! I have your answer right here! Mareep Farm (or the Relaxation Channel, as it is sometimes called) is a channel in which, quite literally, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING HAPPENS. The only thing this show manages to accomplish is making Little Turd doze off into a deep sleep so I can play endless amounts of Wobbuffet Quiz. I literally left this show on for about 5 hours, and the counter never stopped. I read somewhere that the counter actually goes up as high as 1,500, but at the rate it went, I didn't even want to try.
Odd One Out - Don't like the piss-easy trivia game Quiz Wobbuffet? Well, here's an even crappier alternative. A bunch of Pokemon fill the screen, and you have to guess whether the ending number of Pokemon on the screen is 'Even' or 'Odd.' The gimmick about this show is, like Quiz Wobbuffet, the quicker you answer, the higher the amount of money you get. You can continue going as long as you want and go for double or nothing, but I'd prefer sticking to Quiz Wobbuffet, since you generally earn about 350-400 Poke per game if you get both questions right.
Chum Chum Ranking - Couldn't get enough Smoochum? Well, there's yet another show starring the big lipped... whatever, This show basically shows your statistics, whether it be how many times you fished at Cobalt Cove or how many times you bought stuff from Shop 'N Squirtle. They also have stupid bonus surveys that they quite literally pull the results from right out of their asses. Like I even care if Pokemon prefer Apples over Grapefruits.
Pichu Bros. Episode 4 - Can't have a day without a Pichu Bros. episode. This one involves the Pichu clan coming home, only to find out that an Oddish lost its invitation because it was too stupid to hang onto it, and the wind caught hold of it. Having a change of heart, the Pichu Bros. give the Oddish the invitation and--oh, who am I kidding? You probably don't even care. Go watch it on Youtube or something.
Only one area I haven't visited yet... Cobalt Cove. Remember how I said Snowfall Mountain wasn't very big? At least later in the game, you get to access bigger areas of the level. Cobalt Cove is WAY smaller than both Viridian Forest and Snowfall Mountain. The only thing I could manage to do at Cobalt Cove was collect Nice Cards, and fishing was stupid, too, because that just essentially netted me even MORE Nice Cards. Occasionally, I'd find a Tic-Tac-Toe board on the beach, but I never found it very exciting, and even if you do win, Pikachu will get all pissed off at you for not letting him win, so it's also stupid and pointless. I also found a faraway island WAY off the shore of Cobalt Cove. Of course, I left myself idle for too long and Pikachu actually tried to swim to the island. Needless to say, he didn't get very far.
I should also probably point out that at this time, I have been keeping my own little watering garden in the back of my house. Again, this serves ultimately no purpose other than to get EVEN MORE Nice Cards from Togepi and other random Pokemon. Oh, and they also eat the berries that grow out of the plants. Then I saved and skipped ahead.
Day 5 - Today, the game threw a fetch quest at me. Brilliant.
I was tasked with finding the fifth and final episode of Pichu Bros. in Party Panic! I had to do quite a lot of running back and forth between areas, but this is what I ended up doing.
First, I went to Springleaf Field and found Duskull during the day. But Duskull only comes out at night, I wondered. I talked to him and he said he wanted a ball. My memory triggered and Little Turd dug the ball out of the hole and gave it to Duskull. In return, he gave us a lamp. We went to Snowfall Mountain and saw a Gengar guarding the Ruins of Truth. We used the lamp to scare him off (while doing this he also dropped a Nice Card) and we went inside.
Little Turd got very scared when we walked into the Ruin's interior, but I told him to light up the place by electro-shocking the plant bulb flower things. The room lit up and we went down a path that lead to a tablet that had--you guessed it---MORE TRIVIA! After getting the answer right out of blind luck, a statue raised up. I told Little Turd to crawl inside the statue and see what was inside. He found something, but--OH NO! He's stuck! What shall I ever do...?
*wanders off and makes a sandwich*
Ahh... That was delicious. Wait, what was I doing again? Oh yeah, getting Little Turd out of the statue.
So, in an unexpected plot twist, I pull Little Turd out of the statue and I obtain part 5 of Pichu Bros. Was it worth it?
Hell. Fucking. NO.
The episode was a terrible, TERRIBLE music video of Meowth getting electrocuted, burnt on fire, and sliding down a slide. Also, at the end, he does the trademark "BLASTING OFF AGAIN!" line while being caught in a fireworks explosion. Once again, YAY CARTOON VIOLENCE!
By the way, that's pretty much the whole game, besides a certain rare Pokemon showing up and making a starry version of the entire 5-episode mini-series of Pichu Bros. in the sky. I'll give you a hint: It really isn't worth it (unless you have the PAL version of the game).
So, there's Pokemon Channel for you (for the most part). While the execution of the game isn't piss-poor, the concept the game is based on is already flawed so much that only children under the age of 7 can fully enjoy. If you bought this game (which I, unfortunately, did), you were basically buying a full-disc set of fake Pokemon shows and Pichu Bros, in Party Panic!, which by now is probably all over Youtube. If you want to play a game like Pokemon Channel, but better. I strongly suggest you get a microphone and copy of Hey You, Pikachu! for the N64 instead.
2.5/5
