Fan game ‘Pokemon Uranium’ feels fresh and nostalgic

I now recall the many years ago when I heard about Pokemon Uranium. Browsing on Youtube late at night through Pokemon fan games, I stumbled across the Pokemon Uranium beta. I passed it over as just another fan game, and what I thought, with my very unformulated opinion, to be too unpalatable. I quickly forgot about what I saw and it never came up again.

Until, of course, a few weeks ago.

When I went to browse over the new Nintendo-related articles, expecting more NX rumors or Pokemon GO stories, the headlines were flooded with (you guessed it) Pokemon Uranium. After sifting through the news, I was thoroughly impressed with the sprites, Pokemon, and the 9 years it took to piece together the game. Predicting the same outcome as AM2R, I quickly downloaded two copies of the game file for my MacBook and PC, before Nintendo could swoop down like a hawk and take down the game with its army of lawyers. Sure enough, the two developers removed the download links for Pokemon Uranium themselves before Nintendo could beat them to the punch in court. The game boasted over 1.5 million downloads until the madness ended. 

 As for the game itself, Pokemon Uranium feels authentic, showing the same level of detail, if not more, than the real games. The lineup of 200 Pokemon are fresh and creative, bringing new typing combinations to the table like Fairy-Dark, Poison-Electric, and the new Nuclear type — with special green-and-black Nuclear Pokemon. The game also seamlessly blends the old Pokemon with the new as they appear alongside one another from the beginning of the game.

The story is noticeably more developed, from the tragic backstory to the Mystery Dungeon-style aptitude test to the Elite Championship, deviating from the same plot formula that all the other core games share (aside from Pokemon Sun and Moon). However, the game still has that same addiction of growing your Pokemon and catching them all. The level of quality and detail made it hard for me to believe that this was actually a dedicated fan game and not just another Nintendo DS Pokemon title. In fact, those who have played Pokemon Black and White Version will notice a strong resemblance to the game. You can even take your battle chops online once you’ve beat the campaign and battle other players in various real-time battles, or trade Pokemon.

To top it all off, the game allows you to keep a list of trainer friends with whom you can battle and trade. However, one may notice you cannot click the fullscreen button on the Pokemon Uranium game window when you open up the game. You can press Alt+Enter to fullscreen, but it provides only glitchy results and monitor problems, like not filling up the whole screen. You are better off going to Settings and changing the screen size to BIG.

Going fullscreen doesn’t look that great does it?

Overall, Pokemon Uranium is a breath of fresh air from the core games while still feeling familiar to dedicated fans of the series. It is definitely worth your time to play and complete if you have the game downloaded. Even better, you can still expect constant updates from the creators despite the game being no longer available for download. However, if you’re one of the majority of people who were unable to secure a copy of the game, you should get the game anyway you can (just make sure you are getting it safely). Get a file copy from a friend who has it (the safest way), or buy a flash drive online with the game (which can be unsafe)! You can take your chances downloading the game from an unofficial link (of which there will be many), but don’t start crying if you find your computer infested with malware. Good luck!

Head over to the official site for more information on Pokemon Uranium.