"Turtwig's Tackle Toward The Credits" ft. Mr Tadd | TRAINER'S EYE #197

Mr Tadd 0:00

I am Mr. Tadd, and this is my Pokemon story!

David Hernandez 0:41

Welcome to As the Pokeball Turns, where every trainer has a story. I'm David Hernandez, and I'm joined by Mr. Tadd, here to share his own experience with Pokemon. Mr. Tadd, welcome to As the Pokeball Turns. How are you today?

Mr Tadd 0:55

I am pretty good. How are you?

David Hernandez 0:57

I'm doing well, my friend. I'm excited to have you on the podcast. I'm excited to hear your story. I think the best place to start this one is you sharing what your favorite Pokemon is

Mr Tadd 1:06

Turtwig. yeah, so Turtwig was my first ever starter and, I have just fallen in love with him I think he's just a cute little dude and, he just likes to get up to mischief. And you know what? I felt that as a kid. I'm just like, "You know what? He's now gonna be, like, one of my best buddies."

David Hernandez 1:29

Well, let's pretend like Turtwig was gonna get into some mischief. What kind of mischief do you see Turtwig getting into?

Mr Tadd 1:35

it's nothing like that's gonna end up in him in jail. It's more so like little mischief that he'll get in trouble. So if he's play fighting, right, he might bite someone or chuck a tantrum when, when he's not meant to, when he doesn't get his way. like little stuff like that or accidentally break something and then try to blame it on someone else.

David Hernandez 1:54

it would be kinda cool, like for Turtwig, I could see it maybe like being a bank robber, like where it just tries to go underground and tries to sneak through things. Although I guess it is incredibly slow, so it probably wouldn't make a fast getaway I'd imagine

Mr Tadd 2:05

So I'm like, "No, just..." He gets up to like little bits of mischief

David Hernandez 2:09

Now you said, Turtwig was your first, starter ever with Pokemon, so is it safe to assume that you started with the Sinnoh, games?

Mr Tadd 2:16

Yes. Yes, I did

David Hernandez 2:18

Mm-hmm. What do you remember most about the Pokemon Diamond, Platinum and Pearl, that series of games?

Mr Tadd 2:24

I can't remember the gym leader's little name, but you know, so it's a gym, and then you go in, and when you gotta do the, math puzzle. It asks you, there's like a math equation, and then, you gotta answer it. I don't know why, but that, gym had always just stuck with me as, a really cool gym

David Hernandez 2:42

Do you feel like Pokemon should do more math quizzes like that to kinda test our brains?

Mr Tadd 2:46

yeah, I think it was just so different, right? When I was a kid, like you just turn off your brain, you're just doing whatever, and then during the gym, you get hit with the math quiz and then it's oh, I've actually gotta read it and concentrate a bit more instead of just like spamming A to get through the dialogue, as like a lot of kids would do

David Hernandez 3:07

It forces you to slow down a bit

Mr Tadd 3:08

Yeah, and I think that's what I like, liked about the gym. It made me slow it down a bit. And I think that was just like a really cool thing.

David Hernandez 3:16

You know, to me it was like an advanced version of Blaine's Gym from Kanto. Blaine's had riddles where you had to kind of think of questions, and they were pretty simple for the most part. But I think, so much nowadays we try to rush through a game. We're trying to just get through it. Like you said, pressing A, there's a reason why a lot of us will do the Pokemon Center. We sometimes click twice on Pokemon Center, right? And I think you bring up such a good point to where that gym kind of forced you to slow down, to think, to actually use your head. And I think could you imagine Pokemon someday diving into calculus and trying to figure out differentiating equations like solve for... I don't know. I don't know calculus, obviously, but you know what I'm talking about

Mr Tadd 3:55

yeah, go back. We had to learn braille

David Hernandez 3:57

Oh, yes. Try to figure out like, what it says and we have to get out the dictionary.

Mr Tadd 4:01

Yeah. and like this is, I don't know, right? not an issue, right? Where people are like, "Oh, the new games are easier." And I think it's like more so like we're just older, the new games aren't easier easier we're just older, we've grown up with it. Like we know how to play the game to make it easier. Like, but to an eight-year-old or like a six-year-old kid who's picking it up for the first time, like It's not gonna be easy for him. I'm just like

David Hernandez 4:30

Well, 'cause, I mean, the games are built for the new generation, right? The generation of Pokemon fans who are eight to 10 years old kind of thing. And I'm curious to see, what kind of difficulty they had for Pokemon, I guess, current games would be like Scarlet/Violet or Sword and Shield, right?

Mr Tadd 4:48

Yeah. Well, like, so weird, especially for me because I love Pokemon and because I fell in love with Pokemon, I've studied game design and, the end goal is to have my name on a Pokemon game. So, I criticize it a lot. I don't think Scarlet and Violet was ready to come out. I think it should've been delayed. I think, performance-wise and visual-wise, it could've been a lot better. And, what you also realize is that without, new generation, like these kids playing Pokemon, right? they don't play it, they're gonna stop making it like they're not just gonna keep taking it out, and bringing out games because, we're buying it. Like, the kids also have to be buying it and playing it, otherwise it's not gonna last for 10 years from now. So I'm just like Yes, we should hold, them to a higher standard, but also, the game's for kids, so you're just like you can let sort of like-- I think it, that's what makes things like slide in a sense. It's oh, the game's towards children, like you can probably get away with, not having flat surface properly done. Like where a kid might not notice that whether as I've spent 1,000 hours on Scarlet and, I've noticed it, I noticed it pretty quickly

David Hernandez 6:04

You mentioned how one of your goals is to have your name on your Pokemon game, on a Pokemon game. why is that among your motivations? In what way would you like to see your name on a Pokemon game?

Mr Tadd 6:13

I would love to just see my game as like a game designer, like, or like an environment designer. so I fell in love with Pokemon and then obviously with that came more video games, I just kept falling in love with a lot of them. I was like, I want to make one." And, just being such a big fan of Pokemon, the ultimate goal would be to have my name in a Pokemon game which I know a lot of people skip the credits, so I'm like, okay, just like that's fine. That's gonna happen in any game, right? but I'm like, just, it's more so for myself just be like, I got my name in a Pokemon game. I've worked so hard towards it. It's been such a big part of my life and who I am. And just to have my name on a game would be special in a way.

David Hernandez 7:08

I think, because we do skip the credits, we don't take the time to, I guess, signify what that means to have your name on the credits. For you, it would mean, from what it sounds like for you, it would be like an everlasting mark that, hey, I had a part in a Pokemon story that other people got to experience

Mr Tadd 7:28

like I don't remember like anyone who made Diamond, Pearl, Platinum, right? But the game was so good, it had a massive effect. Like I, I remember the first time playing it, I remember like what it felt like as a kid opening it up as a present. It shaped what I wanted to do and who I am. And I'm one in a million people, right? I feel like just knowing that I could have that effect on someone just from how I've made something is like in my head, such a grand idea. it, like never thought I could possibly have thought of that in a- another sense

David Hernandez 8:06

It does. I mean, you wanna make your mark in Pokemon history because nobody could ever take it away from you.

Mr Tadd 8:11

Yeah

David Hernandez 8:12

people may not realize that your name's on there, for you, just seeing your name up there is important, and I can respect that for sure

Mr Tadd 8:18

I just remember, video games for me were especially as a kid, my getaway and my way to relax. And if, my name ends up on a Pokemon game and, another kid who might be going through a tough time chooses Pokemon, chooses the game I'm working on, and ends up falling in love with it, then I feel like I would have done my job as a game designer.

David Hernandez 8:40

You mentioned how Gen Four was so impactful for you as a Pokemon fan, even as a gamer as a whole. What did you think about the remakes when they came out? Do you think they kind of honored it? Do you feel like it was let down? What are your thoughts on BDSP?

Mr Tadd 8:54

Look, I didn't mind BDSP. I think they could have done it a lot better. I didn't really like the chibi style at first. I feel like the character just feels out of place in the world. but overall, it's not bad like it definitely could have been worse, right? But it could have been better.

David Hernandez 9:18

In what way? What do you think would have made that game better? what do you see as the flaws of BDSP?

Mr Tadd 9:24

I don't-- I feel like just making it fully 3D, like that 3D top-down view, I think distorts a lot of things. so for anyone who doesn't really know what I'm talking about, more so when you're on a plane and you look out the window and you see sort of the houses and like they look weird because you're higher than them, but you're getting like a top-down view and you're seeing like the roof and the sides of the house. That's how it felt... Well, to me anyway, it just felt things were stretched a bit more of being like original shape. A top-down 3D has to be done well, and I don't think Pokemon, I don't think BDSP hit that mark for me or for a lot of people anyway. I feel like if they pixelized it and not made it as 3D as they did, I think it would've looked a lot better

David Hernandez 10:28

from what I can understand, it seemed like BDSP was the first time I think Pokemon was caught between the past and the future, right? Pokemon had transitioned to the 3D models, like you said, but Brilliant Diamond, Shining Pearl were made back when there was pixel art, and it was the top-down view. And I think this is probably, from an artist perspective, just from this, it seemed like this is the game BDSP visually was where Pokemon couldn't figure out if it wanted to be a 3D game or a pixel game, and that's what kinda created the chibi art, odd viewing of it, because they were trying to do two things that just didn't go well together. Like you said, it's a little difficult to do

Mr Tadd 11:09

Yeah. it definitely felt like they're stuck between a rock and a hard place, right? And I get it, you wanna keep the aspect of it as much as you can 'cause it's more so of like a nostalgia game. But they also said the game was a remake, right? So in my head, a remake is the game, like the story would be the same as the old story, but like it's getting built from the ground up in terms of visual aspects, art direction, and stuff like that. that's just more so of like me being a game designer side of things. I know a lot of my friends hear, remake and they put it as, Oh, it's just sort of advanced graphics to whatever the game is," of like it being built up from ground up. So it's like everyone has a different take of when they hear a game's getting remade.

David Hernandez 12:09

before we leave the Sinnoh region and we go into the next generation, I gotta ask, so if you were to play a playthrough of Pokemon, either Diamond and Pearl or BDSP, what six Pokemon would you choose?

Mr Tadd 12:21

Ooh. Gotta have Torterra, Luxray Bidoof

David Hernandez 12:27

Yes.

Mr Tadd 12:29

Staraptor. I would probably say Gastrodon

David Hernandez 12:34

Are you doing the, east or west? Or pink and blue

Mr Tadd 12:37

I prefer pink, but that's because I quite like pink over blue. and then I would probably say Mismagius- or Misdreavus.

David Hernandez 12:47

So we transition to the black and white era of Pokemon. did you continue playing Pokemon after, Diamond and Pearl?

Mr Tadd 12:54

Yeah. So I played Diamond Pearl, and then I went to Black and White and played Black and White 2, and then I think I skipped a few till Sun and Moon came out

David Hernandez 13:07

So what were your thoughts on, what do you remember most about black and white during that era?

Mr Tadd 13:12

N.

David Hernandez 13:14

The character, and just for those who may not be familiar with it

Mr Tadd 13:17

so the character and, just More so, the presence he had on the game without speaking is like Red from Gen 1, and I think it was such a cool thing to have just, he's there, something's off about him, but don't know what, right? And he's just this mysterious character who really never spoke to you. everyone, was like hinting he's not, this good guy as, he was trying to make out to be, but, he didn't say anything, right? So you... the whole time, I felt like I was trying to piece together of who this character was, until that lovely Ferris wheel ride. I think that was just a cool aspect. It was so, I think, different from how Diamond and Pearl was, where Cynthia comes up and talks to you, right? And, like, all these characters talk to you. To have, a character who didn't talk, and you're, like, trying to piece it together as you play was, I think, a really cool and niche way to introduce a character, right? Like everyone has a way to remember like certain characters and to me, N being so mysterious and having that like little puzzle while playing the game just was like, "Oh wow, he's like such a cool character."

David Hernandez 14:38

I think also it makes... 'Cause, a lot of times, well, you make, you bring up a good point because a lot of times Pokemon will just be up front or they'll try to force a character to be, whatever model or characteristic they're trying to portray. They don't try to put no depth to it, and they don't do that. They kinda make you figure out who is he? Is he a good guy? Is he a bad guy? Maybe he's neither one because of the themes of black and white be kind of fitting. And like you said, y- the Ferris Wheel, when you figure out he's the, I think he was the king of Team Plasma, right? I think that's what he was. But also, I kinda like the part where it's towards the end of the game, I think when you get into the castle, you kinda get to see his playground, and it looks like a child's playground. It's very eerie, very mysterious, and I don't think even after playing those games, you don't get an idea of who he really is because maybe N doesn't even know who he is in a way

Mr Tadd 15:30

Yeah. like The way they designed N was like you play and then you're left with a bunch of questions of who he actually is. And I thought like that's so cool 'cause like everyone you meet in Pokemon is so you know who they are, like they're your rival or you know they're your friends, or you know they're the champion. and then N sort of just came in and was just like, I'm here. You don't know anything about me. luck piecing it together." And like just left the game, like you knew who he was, but like you still had questions about him

David Hernandez 16:10

Yeah. And it also didn't help that he changed his team all the time. He didn't have a specific Pokemon because he always released them, I believe, after every battle

Mr Tadd 16:18

Yeah. And Like it was just, I don't, like I don't know. There was just like a lasting impression I guess that was put onto me he was just this cool character that I'm like, wow, I like definitely like want, I want answers, man. Like I need to know more

David Hernandez 16:38

Well, you mentioned earlier after Black and White, you took a break from the game. You came back during Alola and of course to present day. What made you wanna stick with Pokemon for so long? I know you play other games, but what makes Pokemon so unique for you?

Mr Tadd 16:52

I think what makes it unique is that the fundamentals of Pokemon are the same, but Pokemon has been going on for so long, every time it's a different story, right? You know, you get a new region, it's a different story. Yeah, you're you're doing the same thing. you're battling, you gotta battle your rival, you gotta battle the champion. that's all the same, that's cool. But just story-wise, right? The way they come up with stuff, the way like the new art direction, the new story direction that the game has taken, I think has always sort of kept me coming back to see what it's like, how they did a certain thing, right? Like see in the trailers that, they showcase gimmick, right? Ah, so how does this gimmick work, right? So like I'm always trying to figure out, okay, so can you do this everywhere? Is there a certain section you can do it with? Is there, Pokemon you can only do it with? and the stories nine times out of 10 are also really good, in my opinion. I quite like a story-driven game, so like Pokemon's like a, a w- sometimes a well story-driven game and I'm like, that's cool." and you can pace them, like a sort of pace where the Pokemon game is into a real world location. And I think that's what keeps bringing me back and being like, "Oh wow, so like this is like really cool how they've taken sort of this country and their culture and put it into a game for, everyone to ex- sort of experience.

David Hernandez 18:29

Well, Mr. Tadd, coming to the end of your current story with Pokemon, I wanna finish on this last question, though. You mentioned earlier how one of your goals is to build a game that has your name on it around Pokemon. My question for you is this: Say you got the chance to do that, and somebody played your game that you yourself designed for Pokemon. What kind of experience or memories do you hope that they're left with?

Mr Tadd 18:55

I actually just like I just hope a part of the game sort of sticks with them, right? So for me, I don't remember the whole storyline of Diamond and Pearl, but I remember me picking my first starter. And then obviously like I remember meeting him and thinking how he's so cool as a kid. if one kid will be like, will play my game and be like, Oh my God," "That was fun," and just remembers what that sort of feeling is like, then I'd feel like I've done my job as a game designer.

David Hernandez 19:31

Thank you for listening to As the Pokeball Turns, where every trainer has a story. If this episode resonated with you, share the episode with a fellow trainer and follow the podcast for more voices, more journeys, and more memories. I'm David Hernandez, and remember, your next Pokemon adventure begins here!