APOKALIPSIS

Pokemon Battrio is a mesmerizing, addictive arcade game. It is one of the strangest games I have ever played in the arcade, and it’s probably a good thing it only exists in Japan, because I developed an unhealthy fascination with it almost immediately. Like sushi and capsule hotels, Pokemon are part of the Japanese experience, and although I did many amazing thing in Japan, I will never forget playing Pokemon Battrio.

I found the game when my girlfriend was attending a conference in Yokohama and I was left to wander the streets. Now Yokohama is a huge city, but it’s not a big tourist town; the biggest attraction is a massive shopping mall. One of the stores there is a Pokemon Center, a store that deals exclusively in Bulbasaurs and Jigglypuffs and other Pokemon emblazoned on every kind of merchandise conceivable, from stuffed animals to soda pop to toilet paper. At the front of the Yokohama Pokemon Center are odd, arcade machines designed at the perfect height for children. When I first passed by, there weren’t any kids around though, just an older woman kneeling in front of the machine. She would put in a coin, quickly scroll through the game’s menu, collect a token from the machine and repeat.

Collecting a token? I was intrigued. What was that token? What did it do? Later, I would see scores of school kids, moms and even business men in suits kneeling down to play the game. I waited until the place was mostly cleared out, and then I kneeled down as well. Intrigued. Soon, I was converted.

Most arcade games take your money for just 60 seconds of game time, but Pokemon Battrio gives you more!! It gives you amazing, collectible, magical Pokemon tokens! In fact, you need them to play the game.

Here’s how it works, as far as I can tell:

First, you put in your 100 yen coin, the game flashes some stuff in Japanese, and then you press a big red button, the only button on the machine. The arcade cabinet then clanks around a bit, and a small plastic token exactly the size of a poker chip rolls out. Of course, each token has a Pokemon printed on it, complete with info on that Pokemon’s hit points and defense and attack abilities. They’re kind of like the Pokemon cards my little brother used to collect (”suuuure it was your little brother,” you say), except on poker chips.

Next, you take your token and slide it onto a playfield area on the arcade cabinet, which is about six inches square. When you do this (you have to do it exactly right), the Pokemon on your token appears up on the screen! It’s a gimmicky trick, sure, but it’s pretty cool to see your little token manifested digitally in the game.

The point of the game is to have your team of three Pokemon battle another team of three. If you don’t have three tokens, the game will randomly pick characters for you. It’s a turn based game, with each team getting a chance to attack and defend. You control your Pokemon by moving their tokens around the square playfield into different formations. The playfield is divided into a grid, and placing your tokens in different formations, say a line or a triangle, will give different attack bonuses, based off of what sort of stats your individual Pokemon have.

I’ll be honest: the game itself is kind of slow, and not that fun by itself, and it gets really hard really fast. Also, I don’t know Japanese, so half the time I had no idea what I was doing. But it is pretty fun to move your tokens around the playfield and see the Pokemon on the screen scramble around accordingly to get into position.

The best, most addicting thing about Pokemon Battrio, though, is collecting the little tokens. The more powerful ones have sparkly bits to them, and the very best ones have a different color base altogether. When you put your 100 yen in, you have no idea what kind of Pokemon will come out. Battrio combines all the vices of gambling, compulsive collecting, and competitive video games into one potent blend.

No wonder so many kids, housewives and business men (and yes, backpacking tourists) found themselves kneeling before it, waiting for that little token like a communion wafer.

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just think about that for a minute.

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Next: Osamu Tezuka museum!