Pokémon Uranium

released on Aug 06, 2016

Pokemon Uranium takes place in the tropical Tandor region, home to over a hundred new and unique species of Pokemon. The Tandor region is known for its gym challenge: to qualify, trainers must collect 8 gym badges from around the region in order to compete in the prestigous Tandor Regional Tournament. Trainers that win the Tournament get a huge prize as well as world wide renown. You, a 13-year-old kid from Moki Town, did not set out to become a Pokemon Master. After your mother Lucille died ten years ago in an accident at a nuclear power plant, your father Kellyn, the top Pokemon Ranger in the Tandor Ranger Union, left you with your elderly aunt and departed to travel the region. But now that you are grown up, your aunt can no longer support you. Out of a home, you did what most kids your age do and took up Pokémon training as a means to make a living. Professor Bamb'o, regional expert on Pokémon elements, has been looking for a trainer assistant to travel the region and gather specimens of the varied wildlife. You step up to the challenge, along with your rival, a younger boy named Theo. After taking a test and receiving your starter Pokémon, you head towards your first gym challenge in Nowtoch city, and take your first steps exploring the Tandor region. Things aren't as sunny as they first seem, though. Just when the accident ten years ago had been all but forgotten, new mysteries emerge. A new power plant is built over the site of the old one. Your father begins acting strangely, journeying to the far reaches of the region and questioning whether your mother is really deceased. Sinister Pokemon, corrupted by nuclear radiation, threaten innocent people. In the midst ofthe turmoil, it seems that an impending disaster is looming over Tandor... You may be in for more than you expected.


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Como olvidar cuando pikachu se tiró un barril de residuos nucleares encima

Vaya temazos tiene. Los Pokémons nuevos molan y en general está guapo.

Nearly flawless experience, one of the most traditional feeling fangames I've ever played mixed with plenty of its unique ideas. The music is so unbelievably good that it's not shocking the creator of the music Emdash has been hired to do tons more work. The only issue I have with the entire game is the Final Fight being kind of absurd but thats a small hiccup. I nuzlocked the entire game through my first try and it was so fun.

[ Story: 5/10 | Gameplay: 5/10 | OST: 5/10 ]

A good chunk of the Fakemon featured here are really goddamn beautiful and badass, but the story beats and level pacing especially are absolute dogwater that just made me want to stop looking at this game after the 6th gym had passed. Dramsama is my husband.

Here's where I'm at with Pokémon Uranium: I think I'm someone who is more or less perfectly suited to discuss this game in a macroscopic sense. I am currently working on a PhD in Radiation Detection and Measurement, so I work with radioactive material, nuclear science, and even some energy and non-proliferation policy on a regular basis. I played this on stream with a number of peers who are all very well-educated in nuclear science, and we spent our time commenting on some of the nuclear-related things we saw. We did not finish the game, we dropped it around Gym #5, and I went and watched some of the gameplay on the internet to see what the rest of the game has to offer.

As previously noted, I have a degree in Nuclear Engineering, and I am working on a doctoral thesis related to radiation detection and measurement. I therefore, take umbrage with the way much of the science in this game is conveyed. It's a fictionalized game, sure. It's relatively unrealistic to expect the game devs to understand what the Klein-Nishina Cross-section is. But I really, really dislike how the "Nuclear Pokemon" are essentially just different Shadow Pokemon seen in the Gamecube Pokemon games. I think from a gameplay mechanic perspective, this is a really interesting take on the type chart, but from a story and flavor perspective, I just can't take it seriously. I understand it's not necessarily fair to critique a game strictly on its story and presentation, but the foundation of nuclear being presented as this mystical miasma of power is just plain faulty, and it really paints nuclear energy in a questionable light at best.

One example that generally stood out to all of us took place at Nuclear Plant Epsilon before the third gym. Not only is it entirely unrealistic that a new nuclear plant would be sited right next to an old site that had had a significant nuclear accident only 10 years prior, but the way that radiation is shown as this weird green gas is flat out wrong. I get that your player passes out from radiation sickness, and is later "treated" for it for the sake of a story, but that's just not how it works. If the game is going to lean into something that is extensively researched as nuclear science, I personally feel like there should be at least some responsibility from the devs to make sure that they get it a little closer to reality. It really feels like a few devs were really interested in what happened in Chernobyl and explored the idea of "what if this but in the Pokemon world?". I might be being a little too hard on the game for not being entirely accurate, but in a world where nuclear energy still struggles to be widely accepted by the general public through concerns of safety, Pokemon Uranium does little to assuage those concerns and instead leans into the idea of a modern "mystical corrupting ether power".

There's another factor that I want to bring up related to the presentation of "nuclear", the fact that there's an item that allows you to talk with Pokemon in English in this game. Generally, I feel as though it's a bit of a cop out to have the magical fantasy creatures to be able to suddenly speak English with the help of some device. I preferred the abstraction of people being able to understand their Pokemon through a serious of verbal cries. With the inclusion of the P.E.S., suddenly you can have Pokemon monologue which feels really weird. Then there's the fact that on Route 6 you have to knock out a series of Owten, that you can now understand. It gave me a weird ick feeling that I'll have to generally explore more, but in short I felt really uncomfortable attacking these animal-like Pokémon that could speak English. It's like if a Slime in Dragon Quest could suddenly demonstrate extreme intelligence. It's the exact problem Undertale demonstrates: "would you attack innocent creatures if you could understand them?". Ultimately, I won't dwell on this ethical concern too much, but I had to roll my eyes when I learned that Nuclear Pokemon (or "irradiated Pokemon", which agian, not how that works) are menacing killing machines who can only say something to the effect of "CRUSH KILL DESTROY".

As a Pokemon game, it's quite similar to the early 2010s Pokemon games where you REALLY have to grind to get Pokemon that can stand a chance. I think there's something to be said that the team was able to make a variety of relatively interesting fan-Pokemon, and it's great that they have a lot of ideas of what could be done to shake up the standard play loop. But at the same time, I really have to wonder why some obviously frustrating features were carried over, HMs being the prime example. Then there's also the fact that some Pokemon are hilariously intrinsically broken. Inflagetah, which I used for maybe an hour, is so obviously better than anything I had used up to that point that I have to wonder if it was worth using anything else, especially given how long I often took for anything to level up. I'm not expecting an Exp. All here, but fighting countless numbers of Smores and Minyans gets old quickly. I can't fault them for this too much though, this DOES feel like a Pokémon game, and quite impressively so.

From a pure Pokemon fan perspective, Pokemon Uranium is a really interesting and exciting fan game that presents a lot of interesting ideas, and creates a world that feels lived-in, and fleshed out. Design-wise the Pokemon are interesting, the world is interesting, and the story is nothing we had seen in a Pokemon Game until maybe until Sword and Shield. But I cannot get past my many gripes with the experience. It wasn't terribly fun to play, and I couldn't get into the story when it mattered most (mainly because of my own mental blocks).

Play it if you'd like, it's a really well-made fangame from a technical perspective, but I didn't really enjoy it.