Pokémon PC Master: The Lost PC Game

Pikachu taught kids all about computers in Pokémon PC Master, a Japan-exclusive Pokémon PC game from 2006.

You Are Reading :Pokémon PC Master The Lost PC Game

Category : Pokemon

Do you ever recall those games from when you were a kid that were educationally focused, but came with popular characters to take the edge off the learning vibe? Apparently a Pokémon-themed version of this concept existed at one point in Japan.

The game eventually disappeared after having had fifteen minutes of fame as a school program, being missing for years until a CD trial version was discovered in January 2018. The graphics look pretty good, which is no surprise since it was developed by Ambrella, the child company of Nintendo that made many of its spinoff games, including Hey You Pikachu and the Rumble series.

Released in 2006, this was a software that taught children how to use the features of a computer, like typing, or how to browse the Internet. The developers used a system of fusing fun Pokémon-themed minigames with introducing the components of using a computer, featuring Pikachu as your main guide as he hops through various puzzles.

Each feature has a different level of difficulty that you have to clear in order to move onto the next tier. There’s seemingly a couple of human characters too, who ask you for “trainer battles” in the form of math drills. Frankly, the whole game looks pretty fun.

Computers Aren’t Exactly All The Rage In Japan

To westerners, 2006 might sound strangely late to be learning how to use technology, but when you’re aware of what computer usage in Japan is typically like, it makes perfect sense. The fact of the matter is that, despite being a country known for producing much of the world’s technology, sources claim that frequent computer use is very unpopular in Japan except by people in the actual field and people who play games.

The same source states that these days, high schoolers mostly use the internet just through their phones. Additionally, their actual schoolwork doesn’t really require using a computer, as essay writing is mostly done by collegegoers.

Pokémon is a very popular thing to put on common products in Japan for marketing; you’ll see it on snacks, stationery, housewares, you name it. The idea for PC Master most likely came from educators wanting a non-intimidating way to teach schoolchildren a brand new system that would be a great help to them in the future, be it for a job or for school. What better company at that time to attach to it than Pokémon, especially considering that was the year of the fourth generation release.

The Reception Failed

For Game Freak, it would have been the perfect opportunity to test the reception of PC games on children and consider whether any future developments would succeed. A subscription program with simple features like PC Master would have been inexpensive to make, cheap to distribute without the cost of producing actual cartridges, and thus easily able to be sold in bulk to schools, a win-win for everyone. So why did it seemingly disappear?

The fact of the matter is that you don’t retain something if you don’t practice it regularly, and at that time many families in Japan did not have a computer in the home nor did kids use them for schoolwork, according to a source. A guesstimation here is that PC Master probably didn’t reach what it was intended to do and as a result, the program was eventually pulled and archived.

This lack of interest is most likely also the reason why there never was and why you most likely never will see any Pokémon PC games, at least none made directly by Japanese developers. At one point, California-based developer Fluid did make two versions of a Pokémon TCG PC game that was published by Wizards of the Coast, the company that was responsible for westernizing the trading cards until 2003. I’m not gonna go too into detail on it, but all I’ll say is look up the cursed game that is Pokémon Play It!, and you’ll see why Nintendo never let that same developer touch a Pokémon game ever again.

Try It For Kicks

Pertaining you’re curious about what PC Master is like, you can download a free trial at MediaFire, but do so at your own risk as with any unfamilar download. You also may need some help with translating since all of it is in Japanese, but seeing as this was an introductory system meant for children, the game features themselves should be pretty easy to figure out. All in all, it feels very nostalgic of those letters and numbers type computer games like JumpStart that we played as children and there’s no way not to enjoy it at least a little.

Sources: Quartz, Anime News Network, and a special thanks to a friend for helping with some of the dialogue translations.

See more : PokemonWe