With Pokémon at the top of many gamers’ minds, some interesting tributes have popped up, including the horrifying recreation of a few dozen Pokémon in EA’s near-forgotten Spore. These fleshy abominations go against the generally happy and adventurous spirit of the franchise (which celebrated its 25th anniversary with the reveal of two new games), but they nonetheless speak to the dedication of the online Pokémon community.
Spore is a game that assigns the player the position of a creator, in charge of the evolution of life-forms from sea-faring unicellular organisms to intelligent interstellar explorers. Generally, give players god-like powers and a few of them will abuse their power to find ungodly ways of entertaining themselves. 13 years on, Spore is certainly no looker, and its robust – but ugly – species creator is still being used by some today to create fan art.
In their own celebration of Pokémon‘s 25th anniversary, someone recreated fifty different Pokémon species in Spore, and the results are beyond disturbing. Shared online by Joesef McMike, the Facebook album below will haunt the dreams of Pokémon fans everywhere. Though they couldn’t engineer the Pokémon in their exact image, they’re extraordinarily close, giving them an uncanny look that is eerily creepy. Some Pokémon turned out better than others, with some retaining surprisingly accurate detail and others being nothing less than terrifying.
There are fans out there whose inspired artworks are not so nightmarish. One fan recreated three Dragon-type Pokémon as huge structures in Minecraft, standing guard over some familiar Pokémon buildings. Their recreation is probably a lot more accurate than McMike’s, even with building materials limited to cubes. Pokémon has become so popular that it would be hard to find a game with a creation tool that hasn’t been put to use on the hundreds of Pokémon to be studied.
There were lots of announcements, not only about new games, that Nintendo and Game Freak have hyped fans up with at Pokémon Presents. There are things to look forward to later in the year, including two remakes, that make this 25th anniversary of Pokémon feel special. While it may not be a particularly pretty creation, it’s obvious that a lot of effort and passion for the games went into this project, and the creations are familiar enough to bring fans some joy and a lot to laugh about.
Source: Game Informer, Joesef Fucchands McMike