What's What! Video Game Facts (45/365)

Although many people believe otherwise, Pokémon was not born thanks to a manga or anime series. The Franchise, which originally started as an RPG video game, Pokemon and due to its popularity it has managed to expand to other entertainment media such as television series, card games, clothing, among others. The game was created by Satoshi Tajiri in 1995, the mission in these game is centered on fictional creatures called Pokémon, which humans, known as Pokémon Trainers, catch and train to battle each other for sport.

The game reached enormous popularity worldwide, and is the second best-selling video game franchise, behind only Nintendo's Mario franchise. Satoshi Tajiri together with his friend Ken Sugimori 1989 created the video game company called Game Freak where they create a puzzle game called Mendel Palace for the NES console with good success.

So in 1990 they go to Nintendo, since seeing the popularity of the Game Boy both decide to enter this market, the idea of a game where you could transfer information from one Game Boy to another, Tajiri associated the idea of metamorphosis, and created an RPG in which monsters could evolve and be transported from one portable console to another. Sugimori was in charge of the designs of the monsters. with a little help from Shigeru Miyamoto (creator of Mario Bros.) to improve the game.

Tajiri first thought of Pokémon, albeit with a different concept and name, inspired by what was one of his greatest passions as a child. He was a passionate collector of insects, caught and studied wonder of the structure and peculiarities of each species. Between the years 1989 and 1990, long before the launch of the first Pokémon game, Tajiri designed the first sketches of what would be his masterpiece: a game based on collecting creatures, which we could use in combat against other players

So, on February 26, 1996 the first generation of Pocket Monsters or what they would be called at the end Pokemon arrived in Japan. Pokémon Red and Green, and two years later we would see these games arrive to the rest of the world as Pokémon Red and Blue. Initially the game was unsuccessful, but upon reaching one year, it had reached the million copies mark. And it all started as a RPG dream up by two guys.