Pokémon

Watch ‘Twitch Plays Pokémon’ Tackle The Elite Four, Right Now

This is it, people—it’s what the last two weeks have been leading up to. Thousands of people came together to control a single trainer in Pokemon Red, and now they’re facing the game’s toughest challenge yet—the Elite Four. You should watch it as it happens, live. Sure, it might take a while for Twitch players…

If you had any doubt that the cult of Helix fossil, one of the “religions” formed around Twitch Plays Pokémon, is a serious thing, here’s proof. Someone sprayed this masterpiece recetnly on a seemingly useless cement block, in front of a school. This must be one of those moments when graffiti becomes art instead of…

The Closest You Can Get To Storing A Pokémon In Your Pockets

Klefki, one of the newest Pokémon characters, is also one of the weirdest. It’s a set of keys, with an immunity to poison and dragon-type moves. You probably can’t open doors with it, but Tony Sarkees on Etsy is selling nickel-coated steel replicas of it. Much easier to put them in your pockets than a…

​Watch ‘Twitch Plays Pokémon’ Get Their Final Gym Badge

The Twitch Plays Pokémon saga continues in victory! In a grueling 20 minute fight this morning, Twitch Plays Pokémon managed to defeat the final gym leader and Team Rocket boss Giovanni one last time. This is the final gym leader that Twitch has to defeat before moving on to The Elite Four. Truly, Lord Helix…

The Goofy Religions Of ‘Twitch Plays Pokémon,‘ Explained

The cult of the Helix fossil/Omanyte is not the only ‘religion’ that’s formed around the events of Twitch Plays Pokemon, you know. This makes sense: a random group of thousands of people aren’t necessarily all going to believe in the same thing. Plus, the mythology surrounding the Helix fossil itself is a complicated beauty/mess—there are…

Not Everyone Playing ‘Twitch Plays Pokémon‘ Appears To Be Human

Right now, more than fifty thousand people on a Twitch channel are trying to control a trainer inPokémon Red. Collectively, they’ve acquired seven gym badges, which means that the end of the game is near. Great! Except not everyone watching is interested in helping making progress in the game. Sure, there are trolls—most recently, this…

My First Pokémon Tournament Was, Surprisingly, Not A Complete Disaster

I’m five minutes into a Pokémon match that should have been over by now. My opponent is fighting dirty. We’re fighting double battles, two Pokémon at a time against two Pokémon. Two more wait in the wings of each side, tag-team style. His tactic involves trapping two of mine in the ring with Mega Gengar,…

Watch Someone Try to Play Pokémon Gold/Silver on the Oculus Rift

Remember Pokémon 3D—the first-person perspective Pokémon Gold/Silver? Well, it’s been made compatible with Oculus Rift, letting players see the world of Pokémon through the eyes of their trainer. It needs some tuning—dialogue is well to the bottom of each lens and somewhat difficult to read, as are the battle commands, which sit far to the…

Club Nintendo Promotion Offers Free Pokémon X or Y in March

Nintendo is offering a free download code in March for Pokémon X or Pokémon Y to those who register, via Club Nintendo, either a 3DS, 3DS XL or 2DS, and one of five games for that platform. The promotion is, obviously, designed to encourage people to buy one of the handhelds, but if for some…

Rejoice, For ‘Twitch Plays Pokémon’ Has Revived The Helix Fossil

And on the 11th day, the lord of ‘Twitch Plays Pokémon‘ was brought back to life. After collecting six badges, after countless fan art tributes, after accidentally releasing over 12 Pokémon in a single day, after getting through any trees and ledges that stood in the way, and after successfully navigating the treacherous Safari Zone,…

The Twitch Plays Pokémon phenomana inspired a lot of artists, including TsaoShin on DeviantART, who assembled a movie poster to mark the first week of the online playthrough. Here’s the full poster, with The Helix Fossil, Bird Jesus, Abby, and so on: Twitch Plays Pokemon by TsaoShin [DeviantART, via The Cyber Wolf] To contact the…

The Creationism Debate…For Pokémon

Do Pokémon really evolve? How do we know that? Do we have actual science to prove that Pokémon evolve? Or do new Pokémon just appear in a flash of light sometimes? (I’m joking, people. Joking.) It’s kind of hilarious to think the Pokémon universe might have debates like the one in this video by The…

‘Twitch Plays Pokémon’ Looks Even Sillier In Real Life

When thousands of people try to control a single character at once, like in the ‘Twitch Plays Pokémon’ stream, things can look a little…erratic.No matter what he tries to do or where he tries to go, the main character, Red, practically looks drunk. Obviously, Twitch players should never have control of a real person. Or…

‘Twitch Plays Pokémon’ Is Breaking Parts Of Twitch

Twitch Plays Pokémon,’ the stream where thousands of players try to control a single trainer in Pokemon Red, is pretty popular—so popular, in fact, that whenever we posted about it, we’d get a number of reports from unhappy streamers who claimed the chat function in other completely unrelated streams were being affected by Twitch Plays…

How Players Actually Make Progress in ‘Twitch Plays Pokémon‘

When more than 80,000 people band together to try to control a single Pokémon trainer via Twitch chat—and then manage to actually make progress—the question that immediately comes to mind is: just how in the world are they accomplishing it? If you tune in to ‘Twitch Plays Pokémon‘ briefly—and let’s be real, since the stream…

Three Pokémon: Latias, Latios and Kyogre, as modern aircrafts? That makes the Kalos Region Air Force a truly legendary one. DeviantART artist Dekus‘ piece is odd, but it’s totally awesome. And something like this would be a great mod in any flight sim out there. Dayshot is an image-based feature that runs every morning, showcasing…

A Few Surprising Ways That Pokémon and Science Influenced Each Other

While the creatures in Pokémon aren’t real, that doesn’t mean they’re not based on real things or scientific concepts. Heck, there are even scientific concepts named after things in Pokémon, amusingly enough. DYKGaming walks us through a bunch of fascinating facts about Pokémon and science in this video and if nothing else, it’s harder not…

The Miraculous Progress of ‘Twitch Plays Pokémon’

It has been nearly five days since Twitch Plays Pokemon, a stream that lets users collectively control a Pokémon game via chat commands, started broadcasting to the world. Since then, the stream has had over sixty thousand people watching and playing at once—as you might expect, it’s been a chaotic, awe-inspiring ride so far. And…

A Journey Through Bootleg Pokémon Games

JonTron has made a career out of playing terrible games so you don’t have to. Which is great, because how else were we going to sit through these awful, bootleg Pokémon titles and crack jokes? This is practically charity. Spanning several Nintendo consoles and handhelds, there have been quite a few awful cash-ins on the…

Thousands Of People Are Playing A Single Game of Pokémon Together

Being a Pokémon master takes time and patience—beating a game in the franchise usually takes at least a couple dozen of hours. Now imagine trying to beat a Pokémon game while thousands of other people also control your avatar. Now imagine that these thousands of people will do whatever they want to your avatar, as…