... is currently under construction, I'm afraid, until I can find cute entertaining gifs and
interesting stuff to tell you about Pokemon Pikachu. At present, I'm still waiting for the
English Translation of Pokemon Yellow to come out; I've played with the Japanese Pokemon
Yellow, and I can tell you that it's really fun. The "virtual pet" element of Pokemon is
emphasized through interaction with a little Pikachu that follows you around; you can "look at"
Pikachu to get a close-up of how he's feeling, and sometimes Pikachu will do cute tricks for you!
Please check back from time to time; if/when Pokemon Yellow is released, I should have a lot more
to share with you.
As it turned out, Pokemon Yellow was wonderfully cute. However, I really didn't have anything to say about it that the million other Pokemon websites didn't. It's cute, Pikachu follows you around, there's a mini-game you can only access if you have a Surfing Pikachu, Team Rocket makes cameos, and you can get all three "Starter Pokemon" at various points in the game. And you get to meet a few other characters from the TV show like The Kid With The Sandshrew, although I forget if he was in the original game as well. That's about it, really.
In Pokemon Pikachu/Virtual Pet Pedometer news, I recently purchased a Pocket Pikachu Colour:
Kin Gin to Issho (Hanging Out With Gold and Silver) while on a shopping spree in Yokohama.
(Note that I will not be going anywhere near Japan for the next few years, so any requests that
I buy any kinds of virtual pets or Pokemon-related merchandise for others will be dealt with
harshly and with much mockery.)
I've sworn not to use PokePika Colour until I've brought my current one to 999999 +1 steps, so I have no idea what the game will be like. But here's a brief translation of the manual!
The Manual
Woo, baby. They weren't taking any chances with *this* one. The first 10 to 14 pages of this
37 page manual are "Do Not" warnings. Do Not drop Pocket Pikachu, Do Not squeeze the screen,
Do Not lick or eat the lithium batteries, Do Not fiddle with the electronics, Do Not spill water
on Pocket Pikachu, Do Not feed Pocket Pikachu after Midnight, Do Not play with Pocket Pikachu
if it is giving you seizures. (Sadly, the last one is real. There is a significant section
of the warnings devoted to the possible medical hazards of using Pocket Pikachu or, for that
matter, of walking around at all.)
Clearly, Nintendo is under no illusions as to the intelligence of their consumers.
Page 11 is the Table of Contents (too late! too late!) and Page 12/13 just explain what the various parts of Pocket Pikachu do... infrared port, LCD screen, buttons, strap-hook (the usage of which may prevent Pocket Pikachu from sensing your walking) which must Never Be Used To Hang Pocket Pikachu From Your Neck, etc.
Page 14 explains that dropping Pocket Pikachu on the ground or into water may cause death or
serious harm to Pikachu, so please use the strap-hook to shackle Pikachu on to your belt,
before clipping him on with the belt-hook. Page 15 finally gets down to business by explaining
how to operate Pocket Pikachu: The Left-Right buttons choose the icon, the Up-Down buttons
choose an item from the menu, the A button (the bigger one) selects the icon, and the B button
(smaller) cancels the selection, or turns off the screen. The Select button (small oval one
to the left) brings up the Friendship Screen, and the Start button (small oval, right) brings
up the Options Screen. The tiny inset reset button resets the entire game.
On the LCD screen itself, you can see the various Icons (Clock, Gift, and Game) as well as the
number of steps you've taken that day.
Page 16 is a rather useless one, explaining that once you pull out the battery sheet, you have
to adjust the colour and the time... so please go to page 32 and page 28 for details. Whee.
According to page 32, you can use the Left-Right buttons to adjust the colour of the screen to
whatever makes you comfortable. You can Select the current colour using the A button. If you
want to change the colour later on, you can go back to this screen by pushing the Start button,
going to the Options Screen, and choosing the very bottom option, Iroai (Colouring).
According to page 28, you can set the time by using the Up-Down buttons to choose the hour, and
hitting the A button to set the time. Similarly, the minutes are set using the Up-Down buttons.
(More detailed information later.)
Page 17 explains how to play with Pocket Pikachu. Simply strap him to your belt (or equivalent thereof), and walk! The upper right corner of the screen displays the number of steps you've taken. The more steps you take, the more Watts you get. If you have lots of Watts, you can give Pikachu a Gift (see page 20) or play a Mini-game. Further more, you can send Watts to your friends' Pocket Pikachu Colour, or Pocket Monsters Gold/Silver for Gameboy!
Page 18 shows a cute yawning Pikachu and explains that Pocket Pikachu has a battery-saving function that turns off the screen if you haven't been actively playing with it. If you want to see what Pikachu's up to, you can press the A button or the Start button.
Page 19 explains the various icons. First of is the Clock/Records Icon, represented by a clock
face. (Shock, surprise.) If you select the Clock Icon, and press the A button, Pocket Pikachu
will display the current time. If you use the Left-Right buttons, you can scroll through the
past 1 to 7 days. These will display thusly:
In between the Left-Right arrows: _ Days Ago
Below the Number of Days Ago: Number of Steps taken that day
Below the number of steps taken: Number of Days since the game was started
Bottom: Number of steps taken since the game was started
Page 20 to 24 are all about the Gift screen, represented by a box icon with a bow on it. By
selecting this icon and pressing the A button, you will get the Gift screen, with three options
that you can scroll through using the Up-Down buttons (and select using the A button.)
The first option is Give. Quite simply, this means that you can give Pikachu a number of watts.
By pressing the A button, you can choose to give Pikachu any number of watts. The number of
watts you currently have will be represented like this: XXX/YYY, where XXX is the number of watts
you're giving Pikachu, and YYY is the number of watts you have in total. (Note that you can never
give more than you actually have.) Select the number of watts you want to give using the Up-Down
buttons, select using A button, and press A button to confirm when the screen flashes the "OK?"
sign. Lean back and sigh wistfully at the cute tricks that Pikachu does to thank you for the
gift.
The second option is Send. This allows you to Send watts to a friend's Pocket Pikachu, or a
friend's Gameboy Colour. This requires your friend to have either a Pocket Pikachu Colour,
or a Gameboy Colour with Pocket Monsters Gold or Silver cartridge. This also requires you to
have a friend.
(Although this sounds facetious, the manual is set up like this. "Sending
to a friend's Pocket Monsters Gold or Silver game requires a Gameboy Colour!" etc.)
The third option is Receive. This allows you to Receive watts from a friend's Pocket Pikachu.
Sadly, you cannot recieve Watts from a Gameboy Colour, because Gameboy Colour doesn't keep track
of how many steps you've walked, because it's not a pedometer.
When you select the Send option, you can use the Up-Down buttons and the A button to select
the number of Watts you want to send. The Receiving Pocket Pikachu Colour should choose the
Receive option. When you're both ready, you should press the Infra Red Ports (the little red
half-circles on the top of Pocket Pikachu Colour) together, and hit the A buttons at the same
time. Pikachu will do something cute on the Receiving end, and something nice may or may not
happen on the Sending end as well.
Meanwhile, if you're sending to a Pocket Monsters Gold/Silver cartridge, the procedure is
pretty much the same. The only difference is that the Receiving end must choose "Fushigi na
Okurimono" or "Mysterious Gift" from the Menu screen, rather than choosing the usual Continue
Game option. When you're both ready, press the infra red buttons and yadda yadda yadda. The
Sender will lose Watts, the Receiver will gain items. Because you can only Receive from the
same friend once a day, try exchanging Watts with many friends!
Page 25 explains about the Mini Game Screen, represented by a pile of coins. This time around,
the Mini Game is a Hi-Low game, in which you try to guess if the right-hand card will be of
a higher or lower value than the left-hand card. It costs 5 Watts to play the game, and you can
win more Watts if you continue to win the game.
When you press the A button, Pikachu will turn over the Left-hand card. Use the Up or Down
buttons to decide whether the card will be Higher in value, or Lower in value. If you're right,
you'll win some Watts, and you'll be asked if you want to continue. If yes, hit the A button
and good luck. If no, press the B button and escape the addictive game.
The cards are, from highest to lowers, A, K, Q, J, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2. If the cards
are of the same value, it's considered a "win".
Page 27 brings us back to the Other screens. Pressing the Select button lets you see how
friendly you are with Pikachu. Pressing the Start button lets you choose from three options:
Sound, Time, and Colouring (from top to bottom).
If you choose Sound, you can use the Up-Down buttons to turn the sound on and off. Hit A button
to set your choice.
If you choose Time, you can either set the Clock (top option) or the Alarm (bottom option).
The clock-setting is explained way at the top, so I won't repeat myself. The Alarm is a little
more complex. First, use the Up-Down buttons to turn the alarm On or Off. If you're turning
the alarm On, choose the Time (using Up-Down buttons), then hit A to set. Then choose the
alarm sound. The top option is the Basic Melody, (A). You can use the Up-Down buttons to select
the Original Melody option, on the bottom.
If you choose the Original Melody Option, you can create your own tune (maximum 64 notes).
Use the left-right buttons to move the cursor, and use the Up-Down to enter the note you've
selected. The A button puts you in Composing Original Melody Mode. The B button either erases
one note, or takes you out of Composing Original Melody Mode. The Start Button finishes your
tune, and the Select button plays back your tune.
I don't know what else to say about the melody composition thing, other than to notice that "_"
becomes a rest, and a line over the note (a, b, c, etc) represents a sharp note. The lower case
letters represent low notes, and the upper case letters represent higher notes.
Oh, and you can send the melody you composed to another Pocket Pikachu Colour by sending 0 Watts
to your friend.
The rest of the book is mostly about troubleshooting. If you are having a specific problem with your Pocket Pikachu Colour, please ask for help on my Virtual Pets BBS and I'll try to see what the solution may be.
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