Pokemon-Game Link and Go

Imagine them lining up like little soldiers and awaiting your orders, with their faces not so monstrous and their features resembling cute, cuddly domestic animals.

Take a successful handheld console and you’ve got it made; that is the idea behind Pokémon, probably the most famous and long-running sprawling video game franchise of all time.

Nurtured from the mind of Satoshi Tajiri, a talented programmer, Pokémon were introduced to the public through every possible medium: from video games to comics, from countless animated series to the most recent live-action films, the "pocket monsters" (a portmanteau combining Pocket and Monsters in a happy and highly effective marketing pairing) have invaded the imagination of millions of fans for generations, from the early Nineties to today.

The reason for such success must be sought not only in the immediacy of the underlying plot and the empathetic connection that is established between the player and the coach, male or female, that we will choose to move within the four walls of pixels: the possibility of capturing monsters and being able to collect them, a keyword that opens up an abyss of gameplay possibilities and hours of play, has always stimulated the innate desire in every human being to make new discoveries, to find legendary creatures hidden in the woods or among the peaks of snowy mountains that are almost impossible to reach.

The challenge is too enticing for the "average" player to refuse, and that is how passion transcended the video game; Adventure with a capital A became immersive, catapulting Pokémon into the player's world.

Thanks to this technology, trainers hold their mobile phones as if they were potentially infinite Poké Balls, using them to catch the little monsters hidden behind the chairs at the table or cleverly concealed behind the trees in the garden below the house!

But none of this would have been possible if, originally, Nintendo had not put the Game Boy Link on the market, a cable thanks to which it was possible to connect two GameBoys and exchange the Pokémon captured after sweating proverbial blood!

The idea of allowing trading between players was as simple as it was ingenious: by encouraging trainers to play as much as possible, Nintendo cemented its fanbase by ensuring future life for its products, not to mention the far from secondary fact of the natural emergence of forums, websites, and fan groups that would help strengthen the bond between players and Pokémon.

Today, perhaps, it makes us smile to think of the kids of that time sitting in school, during recess, busy catching up on their adventures in the world of Pokémon, maybe while nudging each other and bargaining like seasoned entrepreneurs over the exchange of a Pikachu and a level 42 Charmander.

The truth, however, is that sometimes greatness lies in the little things, and the writer is firmly convinced of this: playing side by side knowing that little pixel monsters are traveling through a very narrow tunnel connecting their precious Game Boys... is priceless.

What more can be said? Gotta catch'em all!