From Neopets to Bubble Shooter, flash games have always been one of my favorites. A few years ago, PETA put out a flash game in response to the new Pokemon Black and White games. Their game, Pokemon Black and Blue, depicts the world of Pokemon as animal abuse. The player traverses the world of Black and Blue as the Pokemon themselves, rather than the human trainers. The humans serve as the opponents.
It’s an easy game to play, although it was definitely intended to be propaganda. However, I really enjoyed it. It’s very similar in game play to the actual Pokemon games. The play style was very fluid. I felt like I was able to get into the world of the game. The game referenced the pop culture surrounding the game, as well as using humor to advance the story.
The game included item drops, the first of which was a sad video. There was an option to skip it before it started to play. The other aspect of the game that really reflected PETA’s stance was the moves that the humans used. The first trainer you fight uses ‘tail docking.’ The Pokemon themselves are badly hurt, some are bandaged and others have exposed muscle tissue. The humans are covered in blood with crazy expressions and make comments degrading the Pokemon. These parts of the game conflicted harshly with the bright cheerfulness of the animation style and the casual humor. While it helped impress PETA’s point, the severity of the accusations made again the series seemed almost too over done to be believable.
It’s very easy for someone who doesn’t know any better to see the Pokemon games as promoting animal abuse. It’s unfortunate that PETA chose to come out against a very popular game series that promotes friendship between people and animal like creatures. It’s possible this flash game affected sales for the Pokemon Black and White games. Although with the re-releases that followed only a few years later, I doubt it. This game was pretty enjoyable once you get past the blatant propaganda.
Anonymous says: