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Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Gotta Catch 'Em All?

What is the power of 50,000+ online users at the same time? Well, with video streamer Twitch, those multiple users can actually beat a few games of Pokémon, over the course of a few weeks, of course.

Yes, the event has been called "Twitch Plays Pokemon." Pokémon, the second most popular video game franchise of all time (next to who else but Mario), is a Japanese role-playing game about catching and battling the titular species, short for "Pocket Monsters." In Twitch, the game is controlled by users typing certain Game Boy commands into the stream, examples being "Start," "A," "B," and so on.

The game also runs on two different modes, called "Anarchy Mode" and "Democracy." In Anarchy Mode, said game is controlled by every input into Twitch. In Democracy Mode, the most popular command is used, causing said quotes as "start9."

Due to the insanity of everyone trying to beat the games, "Twitch Plays Pokemon" created a pseudo-religion and a cult. In the original Red and Blue versions, Twitch repeatedly tried to use a key item, the Helix Fossil, in the middle of battle. Because of this action, the Helix Fossil is seen as a holy deity, with players trying to consult it for everything. Another deity in Red and Blue is the player’s Pidgeot, a bird Pokemon, referred to as "Bird Jesus" by a majority of their fanbase because of its extreme overpower.

Since defeating Red and Blue, they move on to Crystal, a second-generation game, and Emerald, a third-generation game. The randomness of the other games has caused even more in-game jokes, like catching a Goldeen in a Master Ball in Crystal, or catching 28 Oddish in the Emerald Safari Zone.

-Catherine Cober

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