Debunking False Information

In the Kanto Region, there is a school called the Pokémon Technical Institute. The students spend years studying theoretical and practical courses. Any student who graduates is given a diploma that lets them challenge the League.

Among the tools used by the staff is a simulator that teaches the nature of type matchups. One student got it into his head to turn that simulator into a full game and market it to the public. His Regional Gym Challenge series has become popular with those who are too young, infirm, or ill prepared to face the real Gym Challenge. He releases new editions every five years to update for any recent changes in the Gym Leader strategies, changes in the most popular gyms, and change in Champions.

While the games offer a basic overview of being a Trainer, they neglect to mention the many tedious, difficult, embarrassing, emotionally scarring, and/or dangerous aspects of the path. Many aspects of being a Trainer would not be entertaining to simulate in a game. Other details are simply too complex to simulate. This chapter aims to explain exactly what details have been glossed over. The next chapters explain the reality of a Trainer's life.

Pokédex

The in-game Pokédex is pathetic. It barely goes into detail. Many of the factoids are wrong, exaggerated, or based on folklore but presented as fact. The accurate ones rarely are part of the urgent information section that every high quality Pokédex has as the first thing a trainer reads and hears when looking up a Pokémon.

Starters

While the games tend to stick with a Starter Trio of Fire, Grass, and Water, those are far from the only options. The choice to use those three was made to give a first taste of type advantages. In reality, each region has a list of Pokémon that are suitable for beginner trainers and are distributed at various Pokémon facilities. These lists can have over a dozen individual evolutionary lines to choose from.

Pokémon Availability and Territory

For the purposes of the games, some Pokémon are given more limited territory than the species has in real life. The species of the traditional starter trio do tend to be rare, but are not extinct in the wild as the games imply. Any Route may have Pokémon of power ranging from a Sentret to a Dragonair, unless humans have taken extensive efforts to drive out local populations. Such a task costs enough that it is never undertaken except to clear out paths for essential and emergency services. The game's territory limits are meant to keep players from running into ferociously dangerous Pokémon when they would never be ready.

The Tools

Most of the medical tools used in the games, including the Pokémon Centers, complete their work far faster than they do in reality.

Bonding

Bonding with a Pokémon, getting it to obey orders, and then turning the various members of the party into a cooperative team requires vastly more work than the game suggests. Most trainers cannot catch and train such a vast variety of Pokémon. In fact, most trainers cannot reliably train more than one core Type. Getting the different personalities of a team to work together is another major hurdle that wasn't mentioned.

Care

Keeping a team alive and healthy requires many hours of work per week. Feeding them can be expensive, hazardous, or slightly squicky. The games never touch on such unglamorous details as grooming Pokémon, tending to wounds, dealing with byproducts like shed skins, or stepping in fecal matter. The games definitely avoid touching on the unpleasant detail that a Pokémon can be crippled or killed in battle.

Route and Gym Options

The game correctly displayed that a trainer must collect eight badges from League Sponsored Gyms to be allowed into the League Tournament.

It failed to mention that each region has many more than eight Gyms, including multiple Gyms of a given type, and the fact that Gyms can be challenged in any order.

Breeding

The games get this subject mostly correct, but make it much simpler than in reality. Pokémon Breeding is a complicated subject that necessitates a license to make it into a career.

Battle

Real battles are not turn based. There are innumerable strategies that can be employed, including using the environment, altering the environment, overcoming type matchups through creative application of moves, and many more.

The 'Stats' presented by the game are, at best, grossly oversimplified and at worst, completely false. None have units to define the difference a single point makes.

There is nothing limiting a Pokémon to a mere four Moves beyond Trainer competence. In fact, a Pokémon that is limited to four Moves would usually be a sign of a very recent capture or a moderately incompetent Trainer. The exception is when a Trainer has a very creative strategy around those four moves.

The moves are portrayed in a simplified manner.

Fully Aquatic Pokémon are not able to battle out of water. Amphibious Pokémon can fight on land, but any Pokémon that lacks a means of movement on terra firma will be unable to battle. The inverse, land Pokémon being unable to fight in water, is likewise an issue.

Legendary Pokémon

One does not simply catch a Legendary. These Pokémon are far more powerful and dangerous than the games imply. Should you ever come in contact with a Legendary, you are in for a thrashing if you fight it.


Zocarik Note: I actually like the games. The fictitious Professor Dracaena, whose Point of View I am writing from, does not.