The game I have chosen is Pokemon Emerald. Its main audience is Game designers, fantasy writers, and players interested in game ethics and world-building. This game is developed by Game Freak and Nintendo, and can still be played on Game Boy. (Due to concerns about the operating environment, all charts used in this article are from Pokemmo, an online Pokemon game that covers Pokemon Emerald. It is entirely based on the original game and all content comes from the original game cartridge.)
When building game worlds, designers often rely on stereotypes to help players quickly understand characters. As Gabriela Pereira pointed out in her article “The Psychology of World Building”:
“World-building isn’t just about making up maps, social structures, or magic systems; it’s about using the perspective of a character as a filter for the reader.”
The essence of constructing a worldview is not just a cold map setting, but presented to players through the perspective and psychology of characters as a “filter”. In traditional fantasy works, biological traits are often solidified into certain racial traits; However, in Pokemon Emerald, the game cleverly subverts this logic:
Although Pokemon have innate biological attributes (such as race value, individual value, nature, egg skills, etc.), their ultimate potential, personality orientation, and behavior patterns are completely shaped by their environment and players.
This design preserves the readability of racial prototypes while successfully breaking down the ethical dilemmas of biological determinism.
From the perspective of MDA, the core of Pokemon mainly consists of Mechanics and Dynamics:
From a mechanics perspective, race values, attribute restraint, and Abilities form the racial prototype of a Pokemon. This effectively reduces friction before entering the world, allowing players to intuitively assess the functionality of Pokemon in battles.
At the same time, from the perspective of Dynamics, intimacy, EV Training, and Nature to some extent represent the reshaping of individuals by the environment and players. Even extremely ferocious Pokemon (such as Gyarados or Salamence) can become loyal and gentle companions as long as they grow up in love and care.
Deviation and Comparison from Traditional Stories
In traditional narratives, certain races are often portrayed as inherently evil. And Pokemon completely separates their biological origin from their moral destiny. As emphasized in the story:
“There is no such thing as an inherently bad Pokemon—only bad Trainers.”
Although villainous organizations such as Team Aqua or Team Magma use Pokemon to create disasters, the game’s narrative and mechanics always indicate to players that Pokemon personality and behavior are mirrors of the trainer and social environment. The Pokemon in the hands of players, even if they are born extremely weak, still have a chance to defeat fully armed villains. This narrative structure will be a special breakthrough for players, telling them to be themselves and even ordinary creatures can become legends.
Ethical Reflection
Is using innate biological characteristics as mechanisms in games beneficial or harmful?
In Pokemon, relying on biological prototypes is beneficial for mechanics as it provides an intuitive cognitive foundation for a world with hundreds of organisms. However, its potential harm lies in the fact that overemphasizing innate attributes may inadvertently reinforce the reality bias that ‘personal value is entirely determined by bloodline and race’. For example, the attributes of a regular Pokemon at full level may not be as good as those of a divine beast at level 50.
Pokemon Emerald has responded strongly to this ethical issue through mechanics:
The game allows Pokemon with so-called “weak” or “antagonist attributes” to transcend innate strength through intimacy and postnatal cultivation, shifting the ethical focus from innate bloodlines to relationships and growth. This effectively helps players establish a core concept that the environment and players are the core components of Pokemon, and stereotypes can be broken.
At the same time, I believe that future games can introduce a “dynamic adaptation of individual attributes” mechanism (which is partially reflected in current new generation games), that is, if the intimacy between Pokemon and players is high (usually indicating a deep bond between players and Pokemon), it can enhance certain abilities of Pokemon to a certain extent (such as the chance to choose to stay alive when falling and use certain skills to increase power).
Conclusion
By establishing a worldview based on the psychological bond between the trainer and Pokemon, Game Freak has created a fictional world that is both intuitive and full of humanistic care. It proves to everyone that
Truly awe inspiring world building is not just about drawing a grand external map, but about showcasing through game mechanics how the environment and players reshape the soul of a creature.
