REVIEW: Dave's Game Rant - Pokemon Jr. RPG
Dave Van Domelen
Pokemon Jr. Adventure Game - Pokemon Emergency!
CAPSULE
A pretty good effort at making an RPG for the 6-8 year old set, although
older kids will find it unsatisfying. But that's okay, since it's intended
for little kids and non-RPG-savvy parents. Recommended for the target group,
has some amusement value for others. $9.99 at most toy stores.
RANT
Okay, when I first saw this game at Toys R Us, I thought it was just a
kiddified version of the main collectible card game, especially since A) it's
from Wizards of the Coast and B) the contents listed "power cards" and
counters. But I later found out it was also a kiddified RPG, so I decided to
check it out, snagging a copy at Family Toy Warehouse after poking through a
copy that someone had opened and scattered about the Pokemon aisle.
The game is intended for use by a parent and a bunch of kids, with the
parent taking the role of "Narrator." It's very user-friendly, although the
balance of the encounters is obviously for 4-6 players despite the box saying
it's for 1-6 players. 1-3 kids playing will have a really hard time getting
through some of the encounters. Players are encouraged to make up details of
their surroundings as they go along, with the narrator prompted to ask them
things like "What does the forest look like? What kinds of animals do you
see there?" and so forth. Very basic stuff, and it doesn't really affect the
mechanics of the game, but the point here is interactivity. It reads as a
bit goofy for anyone over 8, but kids of that age are already graduating in
to the CCG, so it's not a big problem. And it also sneaks parents into the
idea of RPGs without using the term explicitly.
Here's the basic mechanics. Each Pokemon is represented by a heavy
stock card with two sides. Each side has a different attack, and the player
places the desired attack side up at the beginning of a round. Rolling dice
and flipping coins determines if the attack is successful. There's no
special rules for confusion or poison or any of the other Pokemon game
effects, it's just amount of Hits. Most attacks just do Hits in damage,
while a few can heal the Pokemon using it. There's a fair range of power
here, but not enough to be blatant...the target audience isn't likely to work
out expectation value graphs and so forth to determine the best Pokemon to
use, and even the weak ones aren't useless. They all range from 7 to 10
Hits, and attacks range from doing 1 to 7 hits (most do 4 or less).
One problem with the game is that it's very easy for one player to fall
way behind with just a few bad rolls in trying to capture wild Pokemon. This
can be very bad, since if that one Pokemon faints in its first fight out of
town, then the player really can't do much until the group reaches the next
city. One solution would be to give the group a token to represent a Potion
that they can use to wake up one Pokemon. Then encourage them to help out
the player with the least Pokemon with that Potion.
The game comes with 6 checklist cards for players to keep track of their
captured Pokemon. I suggest getting some sort of wipe-off markers for this,
since there's points in the game where they can lose their Pokemon. Plus,
this would let you reuse the cards to play again, if the players think they
can do a better job a second time around.
The designers tried to keep the game as simple as possible so that
inexperienced parents could use it with their kids, but there's a few things
I'd suggest to help make the game work a little better, especially for small
groups.
Episode 3: Spearow Attack - A smaller number of players will never be
able to drive off the full flock. Instead of requiring 15 Hits to drive off
the Spearows, instead require 5 hits for every 2 players or fraction thereof.
So, 1-2 players have to do 5 Hits, 3-4 players have to do 10 Hits, and 5-6
players have to do 15 Hits.
Episode 5: Broken Bridge - Since there's nothing attacking the players,
it should work okay as it is, but with only 1-2 players you may want to
reduce the tree to 8 hits so it doesn't take so long and get boring. Unless,
of course, your kids like blasting the tree, in which case let 'em. }->
Episode 6: Mean Pidgey - This is meant to be a one-on-one fight, so
you'd think that it wouldn't need any adjustment. But players are likely to
have at least one Pokemon faint in this encounter, and a small group can't
handle that. For 1-2 players, I'd suggest that the Mean Pidgey stops short
of making its opponent Faint, and leaves looking smug instead. Since the
rules have un-Fainted Pokemon recover fully between episodes, this will leave
the group doing okay for the next encounter.
Episode 7: Spearow Fury - First off, give the Spearows the same number
of Hits here as in Episode 3 for smaller groups. Second, this scene and the
one following it are a great place to help out a player who was unable to
catch the wild Pokemon in Scenes 2 or 4. If both Pikachu are already in use,
take a random card and change the narration so that this is that species.
Cute ones like Clefairies are a good pick here.
Episode 8: Pokemon Emergency - Rather than have players roll dice to see
who gets the Pokemon they saved in Episode 7, give it to the player with the
least Pokemon. If there's a tie, then either roll the dice or just say the
Pokemon Center has more than one victim of the Spearows, and let each player
pick a random card. By the time Rocket appears in this episode, every player
should have at least 2 Pokemon. Of course, they may be back to one apiece if
they lose against Rocket. For 1-2 players, I recommend just Meowth
attacking. Give him the same attack as Ekans and Koffing, but 8 Hits. For
3-4 players, use Ekans and Koffing, but with only 14 Hits. For 5-6 players,
use the fight as written.
Episode 11: Gary's Challenge - As with the Mean Pidgey previously, you
may want to keep players from losing a Pokemon. However, assuming the
players were able to beat Team Rocket in Episode 8, they should have a spare
Pokemon to fall back on at least. In the event they lost to James and
Jessie, then have Gary give the person he beat a Potion to revive his or her
Pokemon. Of course, he won't be gracious about it.
Episode 14: Samurai's Challenge - As they hit a Pokemon Center right
after this scene, no modification is needed.
Episode 16: Fire - This one's a bit tricky, since it's possible Pokemon
will faint helping put out the fire before Team Rocket shows up. If anyone
has no usable Pokemon after the fire is put out, let them pick one each for
Nurse Joy to help out (she has a Chancey that can heal other Pokemon).
For 1-2 players, give the Rocket Pokemon a total of 12 Hits. For 3-4
players, give them 17 Hits. And for 5-6 players, use the printed 22 Hits.
If the players lost to Team Rocket before, you might want the Gym's Pokemon
to come to the rescue and keep Team Rocket from stealing the players' Pokemon
a second time. Especially if the players didn't react well to losing their
Pokemon (i.e. cried, which the younger players might do if they captured a
Pokemon they really like).
If the players lost to Team Rocket the first time and beat them now, you
might want to reward them by letting them recover the Pokemon they lost.
Overall, it's definitely on the right track for producing a game for the
elementary school set and their befuddled parents. Some of the mechanics
might seem a bit pointless to older gamers (like rolling a die and flipping a
coin for the same attack), but the point is to help kids with math skills and
probability.
Dave Van Domelen, hasn't playtested this, since all the kids he knows
are 3 and under or are college age....
Alexander Williams
<dva...@pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu> wrote:
> Dave Van Domelen, hasn't playtested this, since all the kids he knows
>are 3 and under or are college age....
Play it with the college folk, Dave; you know you want to. (Besides,
I want to hear tales of perversity in that implied Ashe/Misty/Brock
three-way).
--
Alexander Williams (tha...@gw.total-web.net) | In the End,
"Join the secret struggle for the soul of the world." | Oblivion
Nobilis, a new Kind of RPG | Always
http://www.chancel.org | Wins