Grunty’s Furnace Fun – Banjo-Kazooie

The most immediate example that comes to mind is Banjo-Kazooie. Before fighting Gruntilda, she presents a rather odd puzzle to stop our heroes – Grunty’s Furnace Fun. There are unique panels that present everything from timed challenges (like the sandcastle puzzle) to identifying different worlds. You also have Grunty’s personal questions which are randomized each time and can only be answered by speaking to Brentilda, her sister, throughout the game.

Pokemon turns 20 this year- the iconic monster collection franchise has become a mainstay of the modern gaming scene, and practically synonymous with handheld gaming. We’ve already known some of Nintendo’s plans to celebrate the anniversary this year – re-releases of Pokemon Red, Blue, and Yellow on the Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console, as well as new, special Pokemon themed Nintendo 2DS and New Nintendo 3DS systems – but the full extent of what they have planned was unknown until now.

The new video that Nintendo have posted for the 20th anniversary celebrations of the franchise reveals the extent to which this milestone will be celebrated. It seems like we’re going to be getting a media assault waged on multiple fronts, as we are inundated with all things Pokemon over the next year:

• Re-release of Pokemon Red, Blue, and Yellow on the Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console
• Re-release of the first three Pokemon movies in full HD, on Blu-Ray and digitally on iTunes and Google Play
• Release of brand new special themed Nintendo 3DS systems (including Nintendo 2DS models, and New Nintendo 3DS systems)
• Distribution of event Pokemon worldwide, including formerly unobtainable ones such as Darkrai, Arceus, Shaymin, Manaphy, and Genesect
• Release of new Pokemon TCG expansion packs
• Release of articulated Pokemon Ninderoids
• Release of multiple Pokemon games, including Pokken Tournament and Pokemon Go
• Release of Pokemon merchandise

And that’s just what we know now, two weeks into this year. Nintendo and The Pokemon Company will probably have more to share over the coming months- maybe a brand new game in the series?

Pokemon Red/Blue/Yellow, the classic Gameboy RPGs that started the world phenomenon all those years ago, will be 20 years old, come this February. To celebrate the 20th anniversary of what is now their biggest franchise, Nintendo will be re-releasing Pokemon Red, Blue, and Yellow on the Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console.

The games will be re-released as is (which means, hopefully, that MissingNo. will make it in), except for one all important change- the games will allow for local trading wirelessly using the 3DS’s LWAN, instead of the old link cables (which wouldn’t work with the 3DS anyway).

We don’t have pricing details yet, but it’s not unreasonable to suppose that Nintendo may charge a premium for these games- Pokemon sells a lot, and remains one of Nintendo’s most valuable franchises. No doubt these will be priced higher in relation to other Gameboy Virtual Console games.

But yeah, it’s time to catch them all again.

You all remember Twitch Plays Pokemon, right? The hilarious self proclaimed social experiment, which saw hundreds of thousands of people come together on Twitch to try to collectively finish a hacked ROM of Pokemon Red, rose to stardom in February last year; since then, Twitch Plays Pokemon has covered each release in the Pokemon series, but now, to celebrate its first anniversary, it is going back to the game that started it all: Pokemon Red.

Yep, thousands of viewers are coming together on Twitch yet again to see Pokemon Red through to completion. It’s already been a hilarious run, but there is more to it than just fan reaction and engagement- to complete this run.

Players will have to catch all 151 Pokemon in the game, including Mew (the ROM has been hacked to make them all available). Whether or not Twitch accomplishes this remains to be seen, but it won’t be the first time Twitch Plays Pokemon surprises everyone.

Earlier this year, the internet created history as more than a 100,000 people came together to collectively play the classic Nintendo game for the Gameboy, Pokemon Red, and then, against all odds, finish it. It was a hilarious revival of an old classic with an intriguing new mechanic, and though Twitch Plays Pokemon has continued ever since, its popularity dipped.

That doesn’t mean there can’t be others to take its place.

A new channel on Twitch has cropped up. It is called Fish Plays Pokemon, and, I shit you not, it involves a fish playing Pokemon. How? Well, it doesn’t know it’s playing the game, obviously. It’s just doing its thing in its fishbowl, which has been outfitted with a motion tracker camera, and then separated into nine different sectors, each corresponding to a button press in game. So far, after more than 150 hours of play, the fish has chosen a starter Pokemon (Charmander), beaten Gary’s Squirtle with it, and is now stuck in Pallet. It’s frighteningly boring and mesmerizing all at once. It is also extremely popular- at the time of this writing, it had 20,000 viewers, and caused Pokemon Red and Blue to shoot up to being among the most viewed games on Twitch again.

Yeah.

I mean, I don’t know what to say about this anymore. Just think, though, the almighty Mewtwo is subject to the whims of a fish.

The game is being streamed on Twitch, running on an emulator set up to accept commands from the Twitch chat- typing in A translates to the press of the A button, typing Left translates to a left button press, and so on. With so many people playing all at once, the ensuing result is absolute anarchy, and a whole lot of uncoordinated, aimless wandering, but all with a slow, constant progress towards the end game.

The stream is going to complete its fifth full day soon, and in this period, amazingly, four gym badges have been won, Rock Tunnel has been cleared, multiple HMs and Field moves have been taught and used, multiple Pokemon have been caught, trained, evolved, traded, and even released. Somehow, the hive mind is slowly working its way through the game.

Perhaps equally hilarious is the entire culture of meta commentary that has sprung up around this stream. In what can be called the first video game pop culture phenomenon since 2007’s Portal and 2011’s The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, entire communities on NeoGAF, Reddit, and 4Chan, to name a few sites, have taken to creating memes, and a meta story and narrative around this game stream.

“I use Open Broadcaster Software to merge the website and emulator output into a video feed that gets sent off to Twitch. SaltyBet incited my interest of automated Twitch streams with a heavy focus on viewer interaction. I thought that a collaborative attempt to complete a game would be entertaining to watch and participate in,” said the mastermind of this madness, who wishes to remain anonymous.

“Pokémon seemed like a natural choice due to its lack of reaction-demanding gameplay and very forgiving difficulty. When making it I didn’t know if anyone would be interested, it was intended more as a proof-of-concept. I didn’t have any expectations of how people would interact with the stream, but I was very curious. I never planned on this many viewers/players so I’m glad that it’s holding up as well as it is.”

Twitch itself is massively pleased with how the stream has performed as well.

“This is one more example of how video games have become a platform for entertainment and creativity that extends way beyond the original intent of the game creator,” Twitch exec Matthew DiPietro explained.

“By merging a video game, live video and a participatory experience, the broadcaster has created an entertainment hybrid custom made for the Twitch community. This is a wonderful proof on concept that we hope to see more of in the future.”

Funnily enough, Nintendo is the one party that has not yet commented on this stream in any capacity. Given that many were afraid that their response would be to shut the stream down altogether, though, perhaps that is for the best after all.

Feel free to watch the torturously slow progress, or the lack thereof, below.

Watch live video from TwitchPlaysPokemon on www.twitch.tv